why is cerebral palsy not bacterial, viral, or fungal?

Answer 1

CP is due to physical injury to the brain, not an infectious process.

Answer 2

Cerebral palsy is simply an injury to the brain in a child less than 2 years old. It is usually occurs before birth in most cases. The actual cause is usually never known but could be due to a defect in development (random) or due to medical causes such as infection (could be bacterial, viral or fungal, I suppose), hypoxia, head or brain injury early in life, etc.

Answer 3

"The etiology of CP is very diverse and multifactorial. The causes are congenital, genetic, inflammatory, infectious, anoxic, traumatic and metabolic. The injury to the developing brain may be prenatal, natal or postnatal. As much as 75% - 80% of the cases are due to prenatal injury with less than 10% being due to significant birth trauma or asphyxia.[5] The most important risk factor seems to be prematurity and low birth weight with risk of CP increasing with decreasing gestational age and birth weight. Cerebral palsy is seen in 10 - 18 % of babies in 500-999 grams birth weight.[6] CP occurs more commonly in children who are born very prematurely or at term. Although term infants are at relatively low absolute risk, term births constitute the large majority of all births, as well as approximately half of all births of children with cerebral palsy. Prenatal maternal chorioamnionitis is also a significant risk factor accounting for as much as 12% of cerebral palsy in term infants and 28% in premature infants.[7], [8] Cystic periventricular leukomalacia (CPVL) is a risk factor with 60%-100% of patients with CPVL developing CP.[8]

Prenatal risk factors include intrauterine infections, teratogenic exposures, placental complications, multiple births, and maternal conditions such as mental retardation, seizures, or hyperthyroidism. The incidence of CP is higher among twins and triplets than singletons.

Perinatal risk factors are infections, intracranial hemorrhage, seizures, hypoglycemia, hyperbilirubinemia, and significant birth asphyxia. Perinatal arterial ischemic stroke has been identified as another probable cause which leads to hemiplegic CP in many infants.

Postnatal causes include toxic, infectious meningitis, encephalitis, traumatic such as drowning. There is also a relation between coagulopathies causing cerebral infarction and particularly hemiplegic type of CP. Postnatal events account for 12% - 21% of CP. But in a large number of cases, the cause of CP remains unknown."

Answer 4

Because it is NOT caused by a bacterial infection, a virus, or by a fungal infection .

It may be caused by genetics.

It may be caused by brain injury.

Answer 5

It is caused by an injury, usually at birth. Most often the injury is due to not enough oxygen getting to the infant's brain during delivery (birth). It has nothing to do with bacteria, virii, or fungi.

Answer 6

Because the underlying cause is neurological not biological.