Cerebral Palsy Causes

Cerebral Palsy Causes

For those people who have cerebral palsy, many will be baffled by its etiology. They will want to know what has precipitated or predisposed a friend, a child or a sibling to develop such disease. Here are some of the most common cerebral palsy causes.

Cerebral palsy causes are not totally understood. These causes can be assumptions or the most probable relations to the disease condition. However, not a single one or a few of them will directly lead to the development of palsy.

Contrary to what some will say, this is not caused by an imbalance in hormones or neurotransmitters in the body or in the nervous system.

These are believed to be due to the presence of insults to the brain. Most of them are physical insults that will cause the brain to act abnormally and out of its normal sync.

Furthermore, these causes are related to brain lesions that can occur sometime when the child was still in the mother’s womb, during the time of delivery or after the child is delivered and is exposed to the outside world. The situations that are related to this are not of a single and the same cause. There are a multitude of events that can cause the brain to react in a certain way.

With the actual causes, there are certain risk factors that need to be learned. The most common of these risk factors for cerebral palsy are, first, related to birth and delivery. Those who were born before they have completed the normal age of gestation or those who are called preterm babies can be at higher risk. At the same time, those who were born after the 32^nd week of gestation or those who are post term have a higher chance to have this condition. There can be those that are born with low APGAR scores or low assessment score for newborns.

Also, there are those who are born with a twin or two or three more babies at the same time. Multiple gestations are one of the most common causes, although their relationship to this condition is also not made clear.

Males have more incidence of development of cerebral palsy then women. Thus, the male sex is seen as more likely to develop palsy than the other sex. Mothers who have developed infections by the time they were pregnant have a bearing on the development of babies with this condition.

Exposure to certain chemicals like mercury can also precipitate the condition. For those mothers who have iodine deficiency while they were pregnant may have a higher chance of giving birth to babies with palsy.

Cerebral palsy causes are many. Although each risk factor and cause will not directly lead to the development of the condition, it always pays to be careful.