Cerebral Palsy

Have you ever heard a family member talk about your first step or the first word you spoke? For children with cerebral palsy, also called CP for short, taking a first step or saying a first word is not as easy. That’s because CP is a condition that can affect the things that kids do everyday. Some children with cerebral palsy use wheelchairs and others walk with the help of crutches or braces. In some cases, a child’s speech may be affected or the person might not be able to speak at all.

No one knows for sure what causes most cause of cerebral palsy. For some babies, injuries to the brain during pregnancy or soon after birth may cause cerebral palsy. Children most at risk of developing CP are small, premature babies and babies who need to be on a ventilator for several weeks or longer. But for most children, the problem in the brain occurs before the baby is born, and doctors don’t know why.

Cerebral palsy is a condition that affects thousands of babies and children each year. It is not contagious, which means you cannot catch it from anyone who has it. The word cerebral means having to do with the brain and the word palsy means a weakness or problem in the way a person moves or positions his or her body (Bachrach 1). A kid with CP has trouble controlling the muscles of the body. Normally, the brain tells the rest of the body exactly what to do and when to do it. Because cerebral palsy affects the brain, depending on what part of the brain is affected, a child might not be able to walk, eat, or play the way most children do (Miller 3). When physicians diagnose cerebral palsy in an individual child, they look at risk factors, the symptoms, the mother and child’s medical history, and the onset of the disorder.

There are three types of cerebral palsy: spastic, athetoid, and ataxic (Stephens 400). The most common type of CP is spastic. A child with spastic CP can’t relax their muscles or their muscles may be stiff. Athetoid CP affects a child’s ability to control the muscles of the body. This means that the arms and legs that are affected by athetoid CP may flutter and move suddenly. A child with ataxic CP has problems with balance and coordination.

A child with CP can have a mild case or severe case. It really depends on how much of the brain is affected and which parts of the body are controlled by that section of the brain. If both legs and arms are affected, a child might walk with in an unsteady way or have to wear braces or use crutches. If the part of the brain that controls speech is affected, children with CP might have trouble talking clearly. Other children might not be able to speak at all.

About 10 to 20 percent of children who have cerebral palsy acquire the disorder after birth, while many more cases are caused by an incident that occurs during pregnancy or birth. Acquired CP is the result of brain damage in the first few months or years of life (Bachrach