Can cerebral palsy be checked during pregnancy?

First of all, we should understand that there are many causes of cerebral palsy. It may be factors during the mother's pregnancy or it may be related to childbirth. Therefore, it is impossible to fully diagnose cerebral palsy during pregnancy. Moreover, after the child is born, sometimes the symptoms are not obvious, which increases the difficulty of cerebral palsy examination. The causes of cerebral palsy are very complex, including both hereditary and acquired. Let’s take a look at this aspect.

Can cerebral palsy be checked during pregnancy?

Prenatal examinations can only reveal fetal chromosomal abnormalities or obvious abnormalities in the structure of the nervous system. In addition to congenital development, the causes of cerebral palsy also include lack of oxygen during childbirth and other reasons, so it cannot be diagnosed before birth. During pregnancy, you can screen your baby's limbs, internal organs, and check for congenital idiocy, hydrocephalus, cleft lip, etc., but cerebral palsy cannot be detected.

If cerebral palsy is caused by hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy due to lack of oxygen, it cannot be detected during pregnancy. The diagnosis must be made only when the child develops to a certain stage and does not show corresponding neurological symptoms compared with children of the same age, or when there are obvious signs of brain damage after birth. It is not easy to detect cerebral palsy in children during pregnancy. The reason is that B-ultrasound is only an ultrasonic imaging examination and cannot examine the brain tissue inside the head. Therefore, cerebral palsy is not easy to detect, but B-ultrasound can detect external deformities.

An ultrasound examination can only observe the fetal structure, measure the size of the head and the length of the body, and make a general judgment on whether the fetus has any deformities. However, it is still impossible to determine whether the fetus's brain tissue and brain cells are damaged. If you want to confirm whether your baby has cerebral palsy, you need to undergo a physical examination as well as CT and MRI examinations. Therefore, it is impossible to detect cerebral palsy simply through B-ultrasound examination.

Causes of cerebral palsy

The causes of cerebral palsy are complex and include both genetic and acquired causes. The latter is further divided into prenatal, perinatal and postnatal causes, and many children cannot find a clear cause. One is the cause before birth. These include embryonic brain malformations, congenital hydrocephalus, severe maternal infection in early pregnancy (especially viral infection), severe nutritional deficiencies, trauma, poisoning (such as preeclampsia) and radiation exposure. The role of genetic factors in the onset of the disease is not obvious.

The second is perinatal causes. Case analysis shows that premature birth is a definite cause of cerebral palsy. Fetal brain hypoxia caused by prolonged delivery, umbilical cord around the neck, placental abruption, placenta previa, amniotic fluid blockage and meconium aspiration, prolonged delivery of dystocia or post-term babies, forceps injury and intracranial hemorrhage are all common perinatal causes. Neonatal hyperbilirubinemia caused by maternal-fetal blood type incompatibility or other reasons, such as serum unconjugated bilirubin > 340 μmol/L, may develop into bilirubin encephalopathy and cause cerebral palsy.

The third is the cause after birth. Including various infections, trauma, poisoning, intracranial hemorrhage and severe suffocation. High-risk factors for cerebral palsy include maternal prenatal epilepsy, hyperthyroidism and toxemia, bleeding events within the last 3 months of pregnancy, uterine atony during delivery, placental abruption, placenta previa and breech presentation, premature birth and low birth weight. In China, cerebral palsy often occurs in infants who are born prematurely, have low birth weight, suffer from hypoxia and asphyxia during birth, or have postpartum jaundice.