[Facial diplegias during pregnancy]

Abstract

Background: Facial diplegia is a rare event, most commonly of unknown origin. We report the case of a woman who presented bilateral Bell's palsy a few days after a normal delivery.

Case report: Five days after the delivery of gemellary pregnancy, a 34-year old woman developed complete bilateral facial palsy. No treatment was initially prescribed. She was first seen in our department two weeks after the onset of her illness. The diagnostic work-up was negative and we considered that our patient had bilateral Bell's palsy. Treatment with methylprednisolone and intravenous acyclovir, initiated since admission, have had very limited effect.

Discussion: As has already been shown for facial palsy, idiopathic facial diplegia, although exceptional, seems to be more frequent during the last trimester of pregnancy and in the early puerperium. Seven cases have been reported in the literature over the last 30 years. We discuss here the pathophysiology.