What Is Cerebral Palsy?What is cerebral palsy? We've all heard of it and we know that we pray that our child will not suffer from it, but you may not know exactly what it is. Cerebral palsy is permanent brain injuries, that cause a person to have limited motor skills, speech difficulties, many forms of learning disabilities, joint problems, and many other problems. Symptoms of cerebral palsy include, lack of muscle coordination when performing voluntary movements, stiff or tight muscles and exaggerated reflexes, difficulty with precise motions, such as writing or buttoning a shirt, shaking (tremor) or random involuntary movements, excessive drooling or difficulties swallowing or speaking, variations in muscle tone, either too stiff or too floppy, walking on the toes, and walking with one foot or leg dragging. What causes cerebral palsy? The brain injuries occur either in the womb or during birth and sometimes it will happen months after birth. There are cases that there does not seem to be any specific reason why, but most cases are due to many causes, such as - Alcohol and cigarette smoking, Fetal alcohol syndrome, Cocaine and crack, Environmental agents, Genetic factors, HIV, placental bacteria, infant thyroid hormone levels, coagulation disorders or clotting defects in the mother or infant, vaginal bleeding, hypocalcemia, polycythemia, infant hypoglycemia, the mother being exposed to radiation or methyl mercury, and delivery room depression. As you can see some of the causes of cerebral palsy can be prevented. There are four types of cerebral palsy - spastic cerebral palsy, ataxi cerebral palsy, athetoid cerebral palsy, and mixed cerebral palsy. Spastic cerebral palsy is when your muscle tone is too high or too tight. This makes it difficult to move smoothly, so as a result there is stiff and jerky movements. This is the most common for cerebral palsy. Ataxic cerebral palsy is the opposite of spastic cerebral palsy, it's low muscle tone that causes poor coordination in movements. A person with this form will have bad balance and usually are unable to walk do to the shakiness. Athetoid cerebral palsy is a mixture of muscle tone. This means that sometimes the muscle tone is too high and other times it is too low, and as a result of this they are usually unable to hold themselves up. They have many random and involuntary movements in their face, arms and upper body. Mixed cerebral palsy occurs when the muscles are affected in a combination of any of the other types of this disease, that we have just discussed. There is roughly 20 percent of cerebral palsy that suffer from mixed cerebral palsy. Understanding what cerebral palsy is and ways to prevent it is important if you are thinking about having children, since there are ways to prevent it from happening. Unfortunately nothing is 100 percent, but you can reduce your risk by taking precautionary steps. Cerebral Palsy Symptoms >> Cerebral Palsy Therapy >> Cerebral Palsy Treatment >> Diagnosing Cerebral Palsy >> Treatment For Cerebral Palsy >> Treatment Of Cerebral Palsy >> What Is Cerebral Palsy >> Therapy For Cerebral Palsy |