Babies born to mothers who immigrated from other countries have lower rates of cerebral palsy [

Babies born to mothers who immigrated from other countries have lower rates of cerebral palsy [ -

Babies born to mothers who immigrated to Ontario from to other countries have significantly lower rates of cerebral palsy than those of Canadian-born mothers, especially those of the Caribbean Asia and east, new research has found.

"Predicting which is the greatest risk of having a child with CP remains an international priority," said lead author Dr. Joel Ray, who notes that the CP rate has not declined over the last decade.

CP is the most common motor disability in childhood and occurs at the age of four. The underlying brain injury with CP is thought to occur before birth, rather than at birth. Most of the damage is to the neurons of the brain that affects motor coordination and muscle strength.

Dr. Ray, a physician and researcher at St. Michael's Hospital, examined data from the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences on all single births in Ontario from 02 to 08. Each child was evaluated up to four years.

In an article published today in the online journal PLoS One , he reported that there were 1346 cases of CP between 744.058 singleton live births. For immigrants, there were 1.45 cases of CP per 1000 births, a lower risk by 23 percent than non-immigrants who had diagnoses of CP 1.92 per 1,000 births.

However, immigrants living in high-income areas were less likely to CP than their non-immigrant counterparts. Dr. Ray, also a researcher at ICES, said this may be because the wealthier immigrants who have lived in Canada longer, lose the "effect of the healthy immigrant" where immigrants are generally in healthier than those born in Canada.

Dr. Ray noted that we still have a poor understanding of how CP arises, so more scientists can understand the risk factors underlying that predispose a person to CP plus they may come the development of interventions to prevent CP. Why immigrants are at low risk of having a child with CP offers clues to discover how to prevent CP among all Canadians.

About 80 percent of cases of CP are caused by prenatal brain injury and only 10 percent of adverse events after birth. The most common risk factors are low weight and high birth and premature birth - although half of all children who develop CP were born at term and most cases occur in children with a seemingly simple pregnancy

Dr .. Ray said he also thought that the CP and stillbirths share many common risk factors, including the placental vascular disease in mothers things such as preeclampsia, gestational hypertension , placental abruption and placental infarction. Yet even after adjusting for these conditions, the risk of prostate cancer was even lower among immigrant mothers.