Pediatric Brachial Plexus and Peripheral Nerve Program

Caring for all aspects of your child’s health

It takes more than surgery for children to overcome a damaged or diseased nerve. After a nerve is injured, children often have to train their muscles to move in the right way. Our team includes rehabilitation specialists, occupational therapists and other experts who can help your child get back to full use of their body after surgery. In fact, rehabilitation and exercise are so important that our team stays involved in your child’s care for years, to help them meet any challenges they might encounter as they grow.

Coordinating care for your convenience

Our team of experts, including specialists in pediatric rehabilitation medicine, hand and peripheral nerve surgery, and pediatric hand and occupational therapy, sees patients together during a single clinic visit. This allows us to give you the maximum level of expertise in a convenient and patient-centered setting.

State-of-the-art nerve surgeries

Our surgeons are skilled in state-of-the-art techniques like nerve transfer reconstruction. This type of surgery is necessary when a nerve is damaged far away from the muscle it connects to.

Muscles can suffer permanent damage if they go without that signal for too long, so we speed up the process with nerve transfer reconstruction. Our surgeons borrow a healthy nerve from the surrounding area and connect it to the muscle that needs it. This gives your child the best chance at regaining their movement.

Some patients are born with nerves that didn’t develop properly in the womb. Others need care when a nerve gets damaged — for example, because the child is injured during childbirth or while playing sports.

Children’s Health℠ is one of the few centers in the country that can treat injuries throughout the entire peripheral nervous system, which includes all nerves outside the brain and spinal cord. Our surgeons can repair nerves in complex areas like the face, hands and extremities so that kids can get back to normal function and movement. For some children, that may mean the ability to smile symmetrically. For others, that may mean restoring the ability to walk, run, and jump.

We also commonly see injuries to the brachial plexus, a network of nerves that supplies movement and feeling from the shoulder down to the fingertips. The brachial plexus is especially vulnerable to being stretched or torn in the upper back and lower neck, where these delicate nerves arise from the spinal cord.