Birth Injury | Are Infant Brain Injuries LIfetime Conditions?

Are All Infant Brain Injuries Lifetime Conditions?

Whenever the brain is injured, there are severe consequences. Brain injuries do not heal so, when a baby injury affects that organ, it is, indeed, an injury that cannot mend. In some cases, these brain injuries may have negligible effects on the individual’s quality of life. In others, however, injuries can cause conditions such as cerebral palsy, which is incurable and oftentimes very severe.

One of the ways that cerebral palsy in infants happens is when the baby becomes strangulated by the umbilical cord during birth. The baby may also end up in a position that causes the flow of oxygen to the brain to be impeded. This oxygen starvation damages the brain, with the damage becoming more severe the longer the ordeal goes on. When the damage is done to parts of the brain that affect control of the muscles, cerebral palsy results.

Children who sustain a brain injury that results in cerebral palsy can have mild or very severe symptoms. In the most severe cases, the child may be barely responsive and severely mentally challenged as a result of the injury. There are cases where the damage is quite severe, however, but where therapies can help the child to develop some basic motor skills.

The treatments for cerebral palsy treat the symptoms, not the injury. Some of the treatments are very simple, involving medications that simply relax the muscles and allow the individual more control over their motions. Others are new and cutting-edge. Some of the newest treatments involve things that seem very simple, such as cooling off the muscle tissue, and offer some surprisingly impressive results. In most cases, however, a child with cerebral palsy will have a very difficult time doing the most simple, everyday tasks.