Cerebral palsy generally appears early in life and makes it difficult for individuals to control movement or posture.
Physical signs range from weakness and floppiness of muscles to spasticity and rigidity.
About one in every 1,000 infants develops cerebral palsy. It is slightly more prevalent among low birth weight babies. Upwards of 10 percent of cerebral palsy cases may be due to events during labor and delivery, another 10 percent to occurrences during infancy and early childhood. However, in some 80 percent of cases, doctors cannot identify what caused the problem. Possibilities include abnormal fetal brain development, oxygen deprivation, infection, bleeding in the brain, biochemical or genetic factors or other causes that remain unknown.