Thursday 5 June 2008

Cerebral Palsy

Cerebral Palsy is just one of the many birth defects that some children are born with. It horrible to think that when you have a baby you expect it to be perfectly healthy but there are complications that can occur in a small percentage of births. It can occur to the baby during birth or even before. There are a number of different types of Cerebal Palsy that can occur.

Having a baby should be an exciting and wonderful experience but having a child with some sort of birth injury can be devastating. It would seem that between 3 and 4 percent of babies are bon with some sort of injury caused during the birth. It's no wonder that so many people are searcing for cerebral palsy lawyers because it turns out that about 5 to 10 thousand babies in the US alone are born with the condition.

It's not a disease, rather it's a physical condition which is a result of the brain being damaged, whether it's before during or after the birth of the baby. When it comes to cerebral palsy, you will notice that there is athetoid, ataxic, spastic and mixed. Each of these conditions have their own characteristics and so have to be dealt with differently. You will find that the spastic variety is the most common and accounts for about 80% of cases reported in the US.

So why does this condition occur? It's because of the lack of oxygen, also known as birth asphyxia. This is far from being a simple condition and it's not easy to prevent it from happening. There are many issues connected to cerabal palsy such as there being a hemorrhage in the baby's brain or the mother could have suffered from rubella. Also if the mother took drugs or alcohol whilst pregnant this can be a cause.

It's never easy for medical staff to diagnos the brain injury of a newborn baby however they are trained to be able to identify symptoms once they become apparent. Because it's difficult to see the problems when they first occur, the injury to the brain may then turn into cerebral palsy. Although in most cases this condition cannot be diagnosed earlier, if it can be proved that the condition occurred due to medical malpractice then you have every right to go and see cerebral palsy attorney in Illinois or whoever is local to you. Although you cannot turn back time, you might feel that you want to make a cerebral palsy claim which is certainly not unusual because there are plenty of lawsuits that have occurred because of it..