Early recognition of stroke in children is vital 

We talk to parents whose children’s recovery from stroke was accelerated by swift medical attention in CUH 

Four-year-old Molly Montgomery, who had a stroke last November, playing in her garden in Douglas, Cork. Picture: Dan Linehan

Niamh Montgomery had just returned from shopping with her toddler on a Tuesday morning last November when the crèche called about her other daughter, Molly. The three-year-old – who’d scootered to school that morning – had collapsed in the playground.

“She’d very little movement in her left side. She couldn’t stand or put weight on her left leg. I’m a pharmacist and I thought: is it stroke? But then I thought ‘she’s three – it can’t be that’ and put it out of my head,” says Niamh, who reached the crèche – across the road from the family home in Maryborough Woods, Cork – in minutes.