Correlation between birth weight and clinical findings in diplegia.

Since the time of Little the role of birth injury in the aetiology of cerebral palsy has been much debated (Little, 1843; 1862). Freud and Collier believed that diplegia often had its origin in prenatal life and was less frequently the result of birth injury than was generally thought (Freud, 1897; Collier, 1899, 1924). More recently attempts have been made to classify diplegic patients into two main groups: (1) Those who are delivered prematurely and who tend to suffer from paraplegia. This group shows, on the whole, normal intelligence and no other neurological abnormalities. (2) Those of approximately average birth weight who show upper as well as lower limb involvement. This group tends to show mental impairment and other neurological defects (Childs and Evans, 1954; Churchill, 1958; Polani, 1958). The birth weight distributions of patients suffering from congenital paraplegia or triand tetraplegia are generally found to be biphasic. It has been suggested that this provides further evidence in favour of there being two major aetiological groups of diplegic patients (Childs and Evans, 1954). In the present study, the birth weight distribution of 200 diplegic patients was analysed and correlated with the clinical findings.