All types of congenital muscular dystrophy are caused by damaged or defective genes that affect one of the various proteins in muscle cells. This leads to muscle weakness and the progressive crippling that are usually symptoms of the disease. The particular genetic mutation that causes it-and the particular protein that's affected-depends on which type of the disease you have. In general, researchers believe that congenital muscular dystrophy has such an early onset because it affects the muscle proteins that are required for the development of muscles that are especially important during infancy.
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