Microcephaly Definition: What Is Microcephaly?

What is microcephaly?

A child with microcephaly is too small skull. This can be seen at the head of the child's forehead is flat or narrow. The ears are rather large.

Because the skull is too small, the brains may not develop well. Many children with microcephaly also have intellectual disabilities.

Furthermore, they often have difficulty moving smoothly. Some children move awkward and clumsy, with other children continues, which can not properly control their muscles. Therefore she slurred speech, they use not directed their hands and walk them wankelig. Children with microcephaly may be spastic.

Especially boys with microcephaly have difficulty learning to talk. Furthermore, microcephaly affect the feelings and behavior of the child. Many children with microcephaly are quite emotional. Others are very passive.

Children with microcephaly are slightly more likely to have epilepsy or a brain tumor.

Sometimes microcephaly hereditary. Then microcephaly can be associated with a particular syndrome.

A child may also be too small skull when there were problems during pregnancy or birth. For example, the mother had a serious illness when she was pregnant, whether the child received during birth too little oxygen. Then microcephaly not hereditary.

There is no treatment for microcephaly. But the child may be developing if given proper guidance.

Microcephaly diagnosis

To know if a child has microcephaly, the physician measures the skull of the child. Is too small, you will receive a referral for a CT scan or an MRI scan of the brains.

The doctor also wants to know whether your child will have microcephaly, or that the microcephaly is a sign of a syndrome. Furthermore, it is important to know whether the child has microcephaly by heredity. Therefore you get a referral for genetic testing.

Microcephaly causes

Sometimes microcephaly hereditary. If it is inherited, the microcephaly is sometimes a sign that there is more going on. The microcephaly may mean that the child has a syndrome, such as:

1. Wolf-Hirschhorn syndrome,
2. Cornelia de Lange syndrome,
3. Angelman syndrome,
4. Coffin Siris syndrome,
5. Cohen syndrome,
6. Miller-Dieker syndrome,
7. Trisomy 13.

But genetic microcephaly does not necessarily mean that a child has a syndrome. It is also possible that the child has only microcephaly.

Microcephaly is not always hereditary. A child may also be too small skull and the mother during pregnancy had a serious illness or drank a lot of alcohol. Or if the child has a severe illness in the first months after birth. Furthermore, having a child with microcephaly lack of oxygen during birth.