April 2008 · Vol. 20, No. 04Managing preterm birth to lower the risk of cerebral palsy
Think past hypoxia to the interactions of infection, inflammation, pPROM, and white matter disease
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Fast Track
Prompt diagnosis and treatment of intrauterine inflammation may lower the risk of cerebral palsy
Neither adjunctive nor prophylactic antibiotics are meaningfully helpful in preventing preterm birth
Starting tocolysis before onset of contractions in women with pPROM prolongs latency; the jury is still out on the value of tocolysis after pPROM
Delivery can be considered after 32 completed weeks if fetal lung maturity is confirmed
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Mehmet
R.
Genc,
MD, PhDDr. Genc is Attending Physician in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Biology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Clinical Instructor at Harvard Medical School in Boston.
The author reports no financial relationships relevant to this article.
Cerebral palsy is a complex disease characterized by aberrant control of movement or posture that results from an insult to the developing central nervous system (CNS). In addition to motor abnormalities, some patients have seizures, cognitive impairment, and extrapyramidal abnormalities.
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