Magnesium Sulfate Reduces Threat of Cerebral Palsy

A study indicates that Magnesium sulfate partially decreases the risk of cerebral palsy in the babies that are born to mothers who are at the danger of preterm delivery.

Birth before the end of 32 to 37 weeks of gestation is referred to as Preterm birth/delivery.

Cerebral palsy is caused due to some kind of damage to the developing brain of the infant resulting in atypical movement control and postures. Nearly one third of cerebral palsy cases occur due to preterm birth.

Dr. Dwight J. Rouse, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, who led the study, said that if there is risk of delivery before 32 weeks of pregnancy, the doctor can prescribe the use of magnesium sulfate so as to save the child from being born with the disorder called cerebral palsy.

Rouse opined that though magnesium sulfate doesn’t help in delaying the early labor but it controls the high blood pressure connected with pregnancy.

However, there are other experts who believe more investigation and study is required into the matter before recommending the use of Magnesium sulfate as a treatment to avoid cerebral palsy.

"It's too early to know if magnesium sulfate has an overall effect on the incidence rate of cerebral palsy," remarked Dr. William Zinser, pediatric neurologist at Children's Medical Center, Dallas, and an associate professor of pediatric neurology at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center.

In the course of the study, 2,241 women who were at risk of preterm delivery (between 24 and 31 weeks) were randomly administered with either magnesium sulfate or a placebo.

A 6-gram dose of magnesium sulfate was given intravenously to a group of women before delivery and after this they were administered with 2 grams dose every hour till they gave birth or 12 hours had passed or labor had subsided.

The death rates of the babies born to the two groups of women were almost similar but they found only 1.9 percent of the members of the group treated with magnesium sulfate had babies with moderate or severe cerebral palsy as opposed to 3.5 percent in the placebo group.

Due to lack of any concrete results in the earlier studies done on evaluating effectiveness of magnesium sulfate, Rouse and his colleagues decided to carry out this wide scale comprehensive study, to reach a relevant conclusion.

Rouse said,” Our findings are applicable only to early preterm birth.”
The findings of the study were published in the New England Journal of Medicine.