March is Cerebral Palsy Awareness Month

March is is a busy month for our family.  It's Cerebral Palsy Awareness Month, Spread the Word to End the Word day is on March 6th, Saint Patrick's Day happens, we'll celebrate several family birthdays and this year Easter falls in March.  That means we are busy around here.

It also means we are likely having LOTS of fun.  Fun is what we tend to do best ;-)

Now, back to Cerebral Palsy Awareness.  As you can imagine, we are pretty aware of it around here.  But there are quite a few things I've found out this month thanks to this post on Reaching for the Stars.

• Did you know over 800,000 Americans and over 17,000,000 people world-wide have Cerebral Palsy, the most common motor disability in children, with higher prevalence than muscular dystrophy, Parkinson’s disease, childhood cancer, hearing and vision loss, spina bifida, hemophilia, fetal alcohol syndrome or cystic fibrosis.  Source: CDC,  National Institute of Neurological Disorders & Stroke (NINDS/NIH)
• For example, did you know that Cerebral Palsy receives no dedicated, line-item federal funding for Cerebral Palsy research at the CDC or NIH??  Zero. Zip. Nada.  Does this cause to gasp and shake your head in disbelief?  It should!!  Can we change this?  Yes we can, but it’s going to take families and individuals with CP standing together and raising our voices effectively.

I'm excited to delve deep into Cerebral Palsy Awareness this month and I plan to share more information on it here.