exposure to radiation, infection, fetal growth restriction), hypoxia of the brain (thrombotic events, placental insufficiency, umbilical cord prolapse), birth trauma during labor and delivery, and complications around birth or during childhood.In Africa birth asphyxia, high bilirubin levels, and infections in newborns of the central nervous system are main cause. Many cases of CP in Africa could be prevented with better resources available. Preterm birth
Between 40% and 50% of all children who develop cerebral palsy were born prematurely. Most of these cases (75–90%) are believed to be due to issues that occur around the time of birth, often just after birth. Multiple-birth infants are also more likely than single-birth infants to have CP. They are also more likely to be born with a low birth weight.In those who are born with a weight between 1 kg and 1.5 kg CP occurs in 6%. Among those born before 28 weeks of gestation it occurs in 8%. Genetic factors are believed to play an important role in prematurity and cerebral palsy generally. While in those who are born between 34 and 37 weeks the risk is 0.4% (three times normal).
The oldest likely physical evidence of the condition comes from the mummy of Siptah, an Egyptian Pharaoh who ruled from about 1196 to 1190 BCE and died at about 20 years of age. The presence of cerebral palsy has been suspected due to his deformed foot and hands.The medical literature of the ancient Greeks discusses paralysis and weakness of the arms and legs; the modern word palsy comes from the Ancient Greek words παράλυση or πάρεση, meaning paralysis or paresis respectively. The works of the school of Hippocrates (460–c. 370 BCE), and the manuscript On the Sacred Disease in particular, describe a group of problems that matches up very well with the modern understanding of cerebral palsy. The Roman Emperor Claudius (10 BCE–54 CE) is suspected of having CP, as historical records describe him as having several physical problems in line with the condition. Medical historians have begun to suspect and find depictions of CP in much later art. Several paintings from the 16th century and later show individuals with problems consistent with it, such as Jusepe de Riberas 1642 painting The Clubfoot.The modern understanding of CP as resulting from problems within the brain began in the early decades of the 1800s with a number of publications on brain abnormalities by Johann Christian Reil, Claude François Lallemand and Philippe Pinel. Later physicians used this research to connect problems in the brain with specific symptoms. The English surgeon William John Little (1810–1894) was the first person to study CP extensively.