Racial and Developing World Issues : Cerebral Palsy : OriginsOfCerebralPalsy.com

Causes of Cerebral Palsy: Origins, Etiology, Aetiology, Causal Pathways

“Population based data are seldom available from developing countries. The exception is the study from Cape Town municipal area (Arens and Moteno 1989) which used multiple sources of ascertainment. Even so, the authors had little confidence in the accuracy of their estimates for non-White populations. It is, however, striking that the estimated proportions of postneonatally acquired cerebral palsy tend to be substantially higher in developing than in developed countries. Little, his classic paper presented in London in 1862, observed that postneonatally acquisition of cerebral palsy was 20 times more common than intrapartum acquisition. Thus recent rates in developing countries may be similar to rates of 19th century London and reflect potentially preventable causes that have been largely addressed in developed countries.”
-Stanley, Blair & Alberman

In the third world cerebral palsy evidences itself postneonatally far more than in the developed countries of the North. It its effects are as extreme with similar mortality expectations up to 5 years old. Cerebral infection (often meningitis) and febrile convulsions (often from malaria) are common causes in infants with head injury appearing later in childhood.

As noted on the post natal causes page of the site, there are clear differences between the rates of cerebral palsy among Blacks vs Whites in the United States, and between Black, Coloreds, and Whites in South Africa. These differences evidence some of the features of the evolution of cerebral palsy over the last 100 years, with neonatal forms more a larger percentage of total cases in the developed world, and post natal cases a larger percentage in the developing world.

Several causal pathways that lead to cerebral palsy involve preventable actions. In cultures where the struggle for the basic necessities are the preoccupation of an uneducated population, a lack of iodine in the diet, exposure to common infective agents, Rh incompatibility, malnutition and the mothers exposure to mind altering toxins call all contribute to higher rates of these kinds of cerebral palsy than will later be the case when the culture becomes familiar with the outcomes of various positive actions.

A 1990 study showed measured social class by noting father’s occupation and determined that the higher the social class, the less congenital related cerebral palsy. Children of disadvantaged single mothers showed the highest rates of CP.

Stanley, Fiona, Blair, Eve, Alberman, Eva. (2000) Cerebral Palsies: Epidemiology & Causal Pathways. Mac Keith Press

Blair, E., Stanley, F. (1982) ‘An Epidemiological study of cerebral palsy in Western Australia, 1956-1975. III: Postnatal aetiology.’ Developmental Medicine and Child Neurology, 24, 575-585

Arens, L.J., Molteno, C. D. (1989) ‘A comparative study of postnatally-acquired cerebral palsy in Cape Town.’ Developmental Medicine and Child Neurology, 31, 246-254.

Pharoah et al. (1989) ‘Acquired cerebral palsy’ Archives of Disease in Childhood. 64, 1013-1016

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Causes of Cerebral Palsy: Origins, Etiology, Aetiology, Causal Pathways