Determinants of cerebral palsy among under-5 children

Cerebral palsy (CP) is one of the leading causes of childhood disability worldwide, with the greatest burden found in the developing countries of the world. This hospital based case-control study was conducted from January 2010 to June 2010 to find out the determinants of cerebral palsy among under-5 children. The study was conducted among 76 diagnosed cerebral palsy cases with 76 children considered as control group from the same institute. Study suggested that, children with male sex were four times more likely to have cerebral palsy than the female child. There were more than 2.5 times more chance of developing cerebral palsy among the parents who had consanguineous marriage. In case of home delivery there were 2.25 times more chance of developing cerebral palsy than those had the hospital delivery. Among the mothers of the cases who were suffering from problem during delivery, 47.5% had prolong labour during delivery, 25.0% had premature rupture of membrane and 20.0% had breech presentation.There were 33 times more risk of developing cerebral palsy among the premature baby than the term birth. There were 12.5 times more chance of developing cerebral palsy among the low birth weight child than the of normal weight child. This study concluded that, greater knowledge and understanding on cerebral palsy is required to enhance decision-making processes about the affected children.Bangladesh Med J. 2015 Jan; 44 (1): 3-7

Family Relations and Psychosocial Risk in Families with an Obese Adolescent

The aim of the present study is a comparison of family relations in families with an obese adolescent and families with a normal-weight adolescent. Particularly, we studied the parents' and children's perceptions of some crucial areas of their relationship, e.g., communication, support, and some factors of “psychosocial risk” for the adolescents. We compared 30 family triads each with an obese child and 30 family triads each with a normal-weight child. We used a questionnaire aimed to evaluate some crucial variables of family functioning such as communication, family climate, support and satisfaction. A multivariate analysis of variance yielded no difference between obese and nonobese adolescents concerning communication with their mothers and fathers and concerning support given and received from them. In particular, analysis indicated no difference between parents of obese adolescents and parents of normal-weight adolescents regarding openness and problems in communication. As a protective factor against psychosocial risk, in both the samples the relationship with the mother arises as relevant, but, for the nonobese adolescents, both support and communication with this parent were important, whereas for the obese adolescents only support seemed to be really important. The results are discussed with respect to this approach which considered the family as the unit of analysis both from a theoretical and a methodological point of view.