Question
Why do children with cerebral palsy experience salivation? This symptom is particularly severe during eating, causing distress for both the child and their family.
Answer
The early symptoms of cerebral palsy can often be detected by attentive parents. These symptoms include difficulty with feeding, excessive crying or being overly quiet, weak crying; stiffness or weakness in the limbs, the head often tilted backward; prone to screaming, irritability, or seizures; lack of attention to people, inability to fixate, lack of flexibility in expressions, slow responses, and inability to smile; thumbs often curled into the palm of the hand, hands frequently clenched into fists; instability of the head, inability to keep the neck upright, and side-to-side shaking of the head. As they grow older, the child’s motor development is significantly behind that of their peers. Salivation is one of the common symptoms in children with cerebral palsy, caused by impaired nerve and muscle function controlling saliva secretion and swallowing.