Intrapartum Asphyxia in Relation with the Risk for Developing of Cerebral Palsy

Background and goals Neonatal hypoxic-ischemic injury defined as: “Asphyxia of the umbilical blood supply to the human fetus occurring at 36 gestational weeks or later”, represents still a stable cause of mortality and disability despite the progress in assisted respiratory and intensive care technology. It is thought to be the major cause for developing of Cerebral Palsy (CP). We performed an observational study that included children with cerebral palsy, in order to asses the relation of intrapartum asphyxia and CP. Methods Our group included children with diagnosis of CP, age under 5 years with same characteristics regardind sex, families social and educational level. There were excluded children with malformations, braintumors, neurometabolic and neurodegenerative disorders. We evaluated the relation between the presence of intrapartum asphyxia and type of CP, type of neurological involvement: Spastic, extrapiramidal or mixt and the relation with CP comorbidities as motor and mental retardation and epilepsy. Results We evaluated 110 children with CP 63 females (57 %) and 47 males (43 %); 43 of them (39 %) presented documented intrapartum asphyxia. The type of CP was dominating spastic type (79 %), associated with motor retardation in 102 (92 %), cognitive disability in 81 (73,63 %) and epilepsy in 53 of them (48 %). We found possible relationship for developing distonic and mixt type of neurological involvement, no relation regarding the type of CP tetraparesis, diparesis or hemiparesis. In our group, no relationship was found regarding motor and mental retardation and history of intrapartum asphyxia, instead there was a correlation with epilepsy in this group of children. Conclusion CP is a multifactorial disorder. Intrapartum asphyxia could be a factor that determines the type of CP and associated disabilities, but it is not specific. Probably studies on larger groups could better clarify the relation between CP and intrapartum asphyxia.