Special Needs

low tone moms please come in.

My DD was born with a club foot. She is now in PT once a week. She's doing really well and has gone from not bearing any weight on her left leg to treating it like her right leg. yay!

Thursday her PT mentioned that she seems to have low tone. She can 'W" sit and pull from belly to knees through a full split. Because of this she is avoiding crawling like the plague. We are working on that. The PT also mentioned that because her tone is low it could be the very reason she ended up with a club foot in the first place.

My DD also has lots of problems with constipation. After our PT left it clicked in my head that if she has low tone that it could be contributing to her constipation. Anyone else have experience with this? If so, what do you do for your LO? I'm so tired of seeing her struggle just to poop!

I am not sure on the degrees of low tone, but my dd can sit on her own and go from sitting to a crawling position and back to sitting, so i assume it is not sever.

SO, low tone mommas, would you please educate me on all things 'low tone'. I feel like I'm putting a puzzle together! Now, of course, I'm worried that there is some underlying issue that caused her low tone which led to the club foot and constipation issues...ahh...does it ever end!?

TIA!

Re: low tone moms please come in.

  • hi,

     love your picture! 

    anyway, low tone is always a symptom of something, although of what may never be discovered.  my son has mild low tone, and is doing very well; he's been in for about 6 months.  One thing our therapist recommended was cutting off a pair of pantyhose to 1 leg, and having the baby wear it almost like a girdle, from waist to above/or below the knees (you can even leave the foot on).  this prevents the legs from splaying to make crawling more effective.

  • My son has Ds and has very low tone.  He is 8 months old, and can't sit by himself, and his head is still floppy at times.  It is very frustrating....but from what I've learned there are many "levels" of low tone.  It could def be a factor in constipation.  I am constantly having "light bulb moments" when I put Riley's low tone together w/ other things that he can/can't do....try upping the fruit....when I notice Riley's poops getting dry, I add an extra dose of pears/prunes into his diet.  On warm days I also try to get 4 oz of water/juice mix into him just to play it safe.
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  • My son Dean is 13 months old and has Prader-Willi syndrome. His low tone was an indicator for them (among many other things) to test for genetic disorders, and a geneticist suspected he had PWS. He was right. 

    Dean's tone is really pretty low. He wasn't able to hold his head up until 8 months, but now he's catching up. He's almost ready to army crawl!!! We're so excited.

    The pp is right that low tone is always a symptom of something, but they don't always know what that something is. Combined with a club foot, I would be curious if there is a genetic issue (these sorts of things tend to go together).

    And you're right that the constipation could be related to low tone, since hypotonia affects ALL muscles in the body. The intestines are less able than are someone's with normal tone to move things through. We just have Dean on a maintenance dose of Miralax - between 1/4 to 1/2 cap a day. The docs said it's fine because you can't get addicted to Miralax.

    Hope that answers some of your questions.  

  • My DD#3 has low tone but seemingly pretty mild--she wouldn't stand nor crawl until 11mo but most other milestones she's been close to average.  She doesn't seem to have constipation issues but it makes total sense that a low tone baby would.  She's being tested for genetic & muscle issues & we are awaiting the results--so far there is no "obvious" cause.
  • imageTELK83:

    My DD was born with a club foot. She is now in PT once a week. She's doing really well and has gone from not bearing any weight on her left leg to treating it like her right leg. yay!

    Thursday her PT mentioned that she seems to have low tone. She can 'W" sit and pull from belly to knees through a full split. Because of this she is avoiding crawling like the plague. We are working on that. The PT also mentioned that because her tone is low it could be the very reason she ended up with a club foot in the first place.

    My DD also has lots of problems with constipation. After our PT left it clicked in my head that if she has low tone that it could be contributing to her constipation. Anyone else have experience with this? If so, what do you do for your LO? I'm so tired of seeing her struggle just to poop!

    I am not sure on the degrees of low tone, but my dd can sit on her own and go from sitting to a crawling position and back to sitting, so i assume it is not sever.

    SO, low tone mommas, would you please educate me on all things 'low tone'. I feel like I'm putting a puzzle together! Now, of course, I'm worried that there is some underlying issue that caused her low tone which led to the club foot and constipation issues...ahh...does it ever end!?

    TIA!

    My DS was also born with a clubfoot and in the affected leg it is also low tone. This is common in people with clubfoot. They will always have a little less tone in the leg that was affected by the clubfoot. It's perfectly normal for your DD to have low tone in her clubfoot leg. Is your DD still wearing her brace? I noticed that DS was slightly behind with the milestones because of the casting process and then the brace, but he is totally fine now and caught up to where I think he should be.

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