Cerebral Palsy and Birth Injury

Birthing a baby can be an incredibly beautiful and precious experience in your life. It is a moment that will no doubt stay with the mother and father forever. And many babies are born in hospitals. When mothers are expecting they choose a doctor carefully and a hospital that they are most comfortable with. But going to a safe hospital with doctors that will take the best possible care of you and your baby may be harder than we first thought. When your baby comes into the world, you want it to come into this world free of disorders and well...be has healthy as a newborn baby. But unfortunately, that's not always the case. Oftentimes, the negligence of doctors can lead to serious birth injuries like Cerebral Palsy.

What is Cerebral Palsy?

Cerebral Palsy affects the brain. Cerebral is related to cerebellum and palsy is indicative of movement. The majority of CPy victims are infants. It is often thought of as a number of disorders that affect the brain, causing problems with seeing, hearing, mental thought, and movement. CP often affects infants 2 years and younger. These defects in development aren't usually obvious to parents right away and only show progression when the infant cannot walk, crawl, or sit up as easily as most infants.

What can be the cause of Cerebral Palsy?

Sometimes CP, unfortunately, is caused by the negligence of the doctor. The negligence of the doctor is considered medical malpractice that can dire consequences on your newborn baby.

Some of these cases of negligence are:

• Leaving the baby in the canal too long.
• Failing to recognize and treat seizures after birth.
• Not noticing that the umbilical cord has wrapped around the baby's neck, cutting off the oxygen to the brain.
• Not initiating a cesarean section in time.

All of these negligent actions can lead to a case of cerebral palsy in a newborn baby. And what does CP entail towards how your baby's life will be? Well each baby is different, but in general, the symptoms of CP are:

• Tight joins that do not extend all the way because they are contracted. This is known as joint contracture.
• Muscle weakness causing the inability to move those muscles, almost like paralysis.
• Abnormal walk because the muscles of the legs do not function or bend correctly.
• Hindered coordination
• Very tight muscles that do not move or contract easily.

Unfortunately, CP has no cure and will affect your baby's life forever. If your infant has suffered from CP because of a doctor's negligence, you have a case for medical malpractice.

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Viral Disease of Man - Polio

This is one of the smallest known viruses. It has a diameter of about 17-30nm. It has single stranded RNA with an icosahedral capsid. It multiplies rapidly in nerve cells, producing over 10,000 new particle during a single cycle of about six hours. This virus enters the body through contaminated food or water in the gastrointestinal tract, there may be end at this point. However, in some cases, it is then localized on the gray matter of the spinal cord. The world polio is taken from the Greek word "polios" meaning gray. Meningitis may occur and paralysis experienced in the muscles of arms, legs, trunk and other area's controlled by spinal cord. This condition is after called asceptic meningitis.

The more serious form of polio is the one in which the virus infects stem of the brain, known as medulla. This condition is called bulbar polio, due to bulb like appearance of medulla. The nerves of the upper body portion are affected. Swallowing becomes difficult and paralysis occurs in the tongue, facial muscles and neck. Three types of polio virus are known to exist. Type 1, the Brenhindle strain, causing moderate cases of paralysis. Type 2, the Lansing strain, is occurring sporadically but including greatest percentage of paralytic cases. Type 3, the Leon strain, also occurring sporadically but virus confined to intestine, really causing paralysis. Albest sabin and his groups developed a vaccine. This vaccine may be taken orally and is in current use in these days. It produces more antibodies providing all three types of polio viruses, said to be trivalent.

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Polio In Children

Poliomyelitis or commonly called Polio is a viral infectious disease that spread from person to person via the fecal-oral route. The term was derived from Greek word polios which means "grey", "myelos", which refers to spinal cord and the suffix "itis", means inflammation. Before the invention of its vaccine treatment in the early 1960's, polio has become a devastating disease affecting millions of children worldwide since ancient time.

Polio infections causes no symptoms until the virus reaches the blood stream. Virus may even enter the central nervous system and destroying the motor neurons resulting to muscle weakness and acute flaccid paralysis. The severity of the damage depends on the damaged nerves involved and different types of paralysis is possible.

The most common type of polio is the spinal polio which causes asymmetric paralysis, the one that involves the legs. Bulbar polio targets the muscles which is stimulated by cranial nerves. Then there is Bulbospinal polio, a combination of both spinal and bulbar paralysis.

Polio virus is classified into three forms:

* Abortive polio - a mild form of polio which possess a flu-like symptoms.
* Non-paralytic polio - possess neurological symptoms
* Paralytic polio - a severe and deadly form of poliomyelitis

Both abortive and nan-paralytic are both curable but paralytic form of polio virus can cause muscle paralysis and even death.

Polio has been known as the most dreaded childhood disease of the 20th century causing thousands of children crippled or dead for every single outbreak which started in Europe, America then in Asia. This has pushed scientists to fasten their development of polio vaccines.

How can it enter the body? It can be transmitted through ingestion of contaminated materials which are often found in stool. Dirty hands after using the bathroom and drinking contaminated water are both known transmission causes of the disease.

So how can it prevented? Immunization is the best way to prevent this disease through vaccines. This vaccines however was only discovered late in the 1950's and it was only in the 1980's which reported that the virus was eliminated in the United States. But polio still exists in developing countries like those in Asia and in Africa. This mainly because of the poverty and the lack of knowledge about the disease.

IPV vaccine is the most recommended immunization prevention for polio virus. It stimulates the immune system of the body to fight the virus once contact occurs. IPV does not cause polio. Today, IPV is the only vaccine given to children before the age of 18 months and then a follow up IPV booster between ages 4 to 6, during their pre-school time.

Today, it is a mandatory vaccine for every new born children in Europe and the United States to be able to totally eradicate polio disease. World Health Organization is working hard to totally eliminate this disease reporting every polio cases in the affected countries.

However, children who travel to Asia and other developing countries (where polio still exists) are suggested to have the proper and complete vaccination for virus immunization. Until there is a single case of the disease, vaccination will continue worldwide for all new born child.

About the author Noah Mark Rodolfo is an alternative natural healthcare practitioner and is committed to bring the best health and wellness information online. Get the most updated news about health, diseases, weight loss and proper nutrition on his website at Health and Wellness. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Noah_Mark_Rodolfo

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Cerebral Palsy Symptoms - Clues to Identifying Cerebral Palsy

Cerebral palsy (CP) impairs movement and coordination of the muscles.  It is caused when there is damage done to the brain.  Some children are born with this disability and there are others that develop the condition due to an injury suffered after delivery.  It is not always evident that a newborn has it just because of the lack of mobility already in an infant.  Symptoms are more noticeable as the child gets older.  Symptoms are not always the same for each child and it also depends on the severity of the condition.  Some types of cerebral palsy are:

• Spastic: This type of cerebral palsy is the most seen in children and it can affect either one side of the body or affect the entire body.  This type involves muscle spasms and their body is stiff making it hard to move the limbs.  
• Athetoid: Movements in this type are abnormal.  They can be jerking, slow, not controlled movements.
• Ataxic: This condition is not as common, the balance and coordination is off.
• Mixed: This condition usually is made of symptoms of other cerebral palsy types.

Is Your Child Displaying CP Symptoms?

One main symptom of cerebral palsy is the delay in their development.  As children grow they will reach certain milestones from a baby until early childhood.  If you are not seeing some of the milestones in your child then take them to see a physician.

Some factors that your child may have some developmental delays are:

• After 2 months, the head movements are not controlled well
• Cannot sit on their own after 10 months
• Cannot crawl or stand after 1 year
• One side of body drags
• Does not walk after 2 years of age

These are not the only the signs to be aware of, other signs are muscle stiffness or overly relaxed muscles.  Muscle impairment also will affect their posture.  Parents should also be aware that hand preference of a child usually happens after 12 months.  If you child is showing early signs of hand preference can be a sign of CP.

Associated Conditions, Symptoms & Diagnosis

Children with cerebral palsy symptoms also experience other conditions such as:

• Seizures
• Problem with breathing
• Impairments with vision, speech, or hearing
• They are mentally challenged

If there are signs that something is wrong with your child, you need to take them in to see a doctor immediately.  Doctors will diagnose your child using MRIs, EEGs, CT scans and other related tests.

If your child is diagnosed with CP due to medical neglect you should contact a medical malpractice attorney right away.  You may be able to recover some monetary losses from the injury.  Call an experienced attorney to find out more.  

David Austin is an Attorney focused on complex injury cases. You can learn more about Cerebral Palsy Symptoms at his website. Burke-Eisner.com Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=David_Austin

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Will Polio Make a Successful Comeback?

For people living in developed countries, Polio is a disease which is a distant memory thanks to Jonas Salk's vaccination which was introduced in 1955. The disease was almost completely eradicated by the turn of the twenty-first century except for a few small pockets on the African continent. Unfortunately, those pockets were not contained and a new outbreak of Polio began in Africa in 2005. At issue is the fact that the majority of African adults have never been exposed to the polio virus but have not been vaccinated either. With less-than-healthy water and other unsanitary living conditions, Africans in several regions are now at risk for contracting polio.

Namibia, in the south-west region of Africa, reported 19 confirmed cases and 150 suspected cases in 2006. Nigeria, in west-central Africa, reported 434 cases in 2005 and 785 cases in 2006. The numbers are equally grim in many other areas of Africa yet the news gets even more alarming: the polio outbreak has not been confined to that continent.

Southern Asia and the Arabian Peninsula are also now part of the equation. India saw a new outbreak beginning in 2005 with 35 confirmed cases; that number rose to 249 in 2006. Nepal, Bangladesh, and Yemen have likewise reported a dramatic increase in confirmed cases since 2006. With the increase in worldwide travel, some experts believe we may be on the verge of a new global outbreak of Polio.

Vaccination efforts have been ramped up accordingly, but in Africa doctors have also been studying vaccine-derived poliovirus which can cause the disease just as well as wild-type poliovirus. New medication has been developed to combat paralysis in victims who have contracted polio from a vaccination and it seems to be working. Since the main complication of polio is paralysis, these new drugs should help ease the fears of those who might be unwilling to be vaccinated.

While experts agree the spread of polio needs careful attention over the next several years, no one really knows where the disease will go next. Further study, the development of new drugs, increased vaccination efforts, and a concerted effort to sterilize food and water supplies should significantly reduce the threat of a worldwide pandemic. Yet the most important lesson learned since the start of the recent outbreak is that small pockets of remaining polio must not be neglected. The disease is extremely contagious and if allowed to exist, it will find a means to spread.

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