Causes of Cerebral Palsy

What is cerebral palsy and what are its causes you may be asking.

Cerebral palsy is a type of developmental disorder. If we break down the term we can get a hint as to what this disability entails. The word cerebral comes from the word cerebellum, which is an area in the brain that is affected by the disorder. The word palsy is used to refer to a movement disorder.

There are various reasons why this disability may occur. In short, cerebral palsy is injury to the brain that can occur before birth, during birth or after the birth of the child. It is the failure of the brain to develop properly
or neurological damage done to the child's developing brain that results in this developmental brain malformation. The Mayo Clinic ( www.mayoclinic.com/health/cerebral-palsy.com )breaks down these causes of cerebral palsy down even better. They list the causes of cerebral palsy
as such:
- Random mutations in genes that control brain development.

- Maternal infections that affect the developing fetus.

- Fetal stroke, a disruption of blood supply to the developing brain.

- Lack of oxygen to the brain related to difficult labor or delivery (asphyxia).

- Infant infections that cause inflammation in or around the brain.

- Traumatic head injury to an infant from a motor vehicle accident, fall or child abuse.

The severity of the cerebral palsy on the child depends on the type of injury to the brain as well as when the injury first occurred. Babies that are very premature may suffer bleeding to the brain which is known as intraventrical hemorrhage which can result in extensive damage to the brain. Asphyxia which is one of the causes of cerebral palsy causes damage to brain tissue. Between 10 and 15 percent of reported cases of cerebral palsy are caused from brain injury, bleeding in the brain and asphyxia. Thousands of occurrences of cerebral palsy are due to medical malpractice and were preventable.

Work cited: www.mayoclinic.com/health/cerebral-palsy