LIBRARY > BIRTH INJURIES > CEREBRAL PALSY

What is Cerebral Palsy?

Topics Covered

Overview
Symptoms
Diagnosis
Causes: General and Birth injuries
Your Legal Rights

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Overview

Cerebral palsy is the most common developmental disability in the United States, affecting about one out of every 500 children born each year.

Children diagnosed with cerebral palsy suffer from chronic disorders preventing them from moving normally. Sometimes these children also have some degree of mental retardation. Medical problems, such as seizures and hearing loss, can be associated with cerebral palsy.

Signs of cerebral palsy can be evident immediately after birth or may not be visible until the child misses important developmental milestones during infancy. In many cases, it takes until the child's third birthday for the doctor to make a definitive diagnosis.

Unlike other diseases affecting muscular function, cerebral palsy does not get progressively worse as the child grows up. In fact, the affected child's motor functions can be improved with surgical treatment and rehabilitative therapy, especially if she suffers from mild or moderate impairment.

Symptoms

The symptoms of brain damage that can cause cerebral palsy are often apparent during the early weeks of a baby's life. These include:

Being born blue or with poor color
Inability to breathe on her own
Seizures
Trouble nursing
Poor muscle tone
Lack of alertness
Trembling of arms and legs

Parents are often the first to notice problems with their children. Later in infancy or during the toddler years, signs that a child may have cerebral palsy include:

Failure to roll over, sit, crawl, walk, feed independently
Poor posture and balance
Involuntary movements of arms and legs
Poor motor skills
Tight muscles, rigidity
Loose muscles, floppiness, weakness
Hearing loss
Dental problems
Poor eyesight

Diagnosis

If your child's pediatrician suspects cerebral palsy, your child will be examined by a number of different pediatric specialists before a definitive diagnosis is made. These medical professionals -- neurologists, orthopedists -- assess physical and mental development. They determine any changes in the child's health over time.

The doctors will make sure that other brain or nervous system disorders are not causing the child's disabilities. Unlike children with other abnormalities affecting the nervous system and motor function, children with cerebral palsy do not suffer deterioration in their ability to move as they grow up.

Various medical tests will be performed. These include CT scans, which provide images of the brain to see if certain areas are underdeveloped. An MRI can detect brain damage. The child will undergo intelligence tests.

Also taken into account in diagnosing cerebral palsy is the child's prenatal medical history. If the mother had a difficult pregnancy, labor, delivery or birth, her baby may have suffered the kind of brain damage linked to cerebral palsy.

Causes: General and Birth injuries

Cerebral palsy has a number of causes, but all involve damage to a child's brain. This damage could have occurred during pregnancy. The mother may have had certain infections, such as German measles. Or, she may have been a victim of an immune disorder known as Rh Incompatibility, which leads to the destruction of fetal blood cells, causing jaundice. Jaundice can harm the baby's brain if not recognized and treated. In rare cases, cerebral palsy results from genetic disorders.

In some instances, the affected baby was born prematurely or had difficulty breathing at birth. Brain bleeds in newborns are also associated with cerebral palsy.

It is not uncommon for the mother of a child with cerebral palsy to have experienced a difficult delivery with significant complications. These complications include:

Low amniotic fluid
Twisted or compressed umbilical cord
Placental abruption
Hemorrhage
Premature rupture of membranes
Fetal distress
Exceptionally long labor
Forceps or vacuum extraction delivery.

If these complications were preventable or treatable and were not handled properly by the mother's medical providers, the baby may have suffered a head trauma or dangerous loss of oxygen.

The obstetrician may have ignored or misread signs of an emergency, affecting mother or baby. If a Caesarean Section was called for in these circumstances and the obstetrician delayed or failed to perform one, the infant's brain could have been harmed during a prolonged period of distress, insufficient oxygen or blood flow.

If the doctor expected the infant to be born with a problem but failed to ensure a pediatrician was present in the delivery room to provide immediate treatment, such as resuscitation measures, the may have been injured.

Medical malpractice causing needless birth injuries are known to cause cerebral palsy in about 10 to 20 percent of all children diagnosed with the disorder.

Your Legal Rights

If you or your doctor suspects that medical malpractice played a role in causing your child to suffer the lifelong disabilities that accompany cerebral palsy, you should seek assistance from a lawyer who is an expert in cases involving birth injuries.

Trolman, Glaser and Lichtman, with the help of medical experts, will review all of the mother's and newborn's medical and hospital records. They will assess how the medical team handled any complications that occurred. If they determine that the care provided to mother and baby did not meet accepted medical standards, they will recommend that a lawsuit be filed against the doctors seeking a monetary award for the damage done to the child.

A child with cerebral palsy often requires extensive rehabilitation and surgeries. Sometimes for the rest of her life, she will need assistance with daily tasks. If a lawsuit is successful, resulting in a settlement or jury award, the child can obtain the financial resources needed for her care.