The Cesar Chavez Mini Film Festival, a two-day event in downtown Riverside, kicks off tonight (4/1) with a free 7 p.m. screening of âThe Fight in the Fields: Cesar Chavez and the Farmworkers Struggleâ at the Culver Center, 3834 Main Street.
Ileus is a blockage of the intestines caused by a lack of peristalsis. Peristalsis is the pumping action of the intestines that helps move food through the digestive system. Ileus is used to describe both full and partial blockages. Solids (food), liquids, and gases are not able to move properly through the body when ileus occurs. Bowel movement can stop due to a mechanical blockage as well. Mechanical means there is something physically lodged in the intestine that is causing the blockage.
Unlike mechanical obstruction, non-mechanical obstruction, called ileus or paralytic ileus, occurs because peristalsis stops. Peristalsis is the rhythmic contraction that moves material through the bowel. Ileus is most often associated with an infection of the peritoneum (the membrane lining the abdomen). It is one of the major causes of bowel obstruction in infants and children. Another common cause of ileus is a disruption or reduction of the blood supply to the abdomen.