Your baby is a model

Misaki has not made it on to the cover of Vogue Baby but she would be if I was the editor. This blog is about how toddlers have perfect posture, flexibility and manual handling skills. How do we prevent our babies from morphing into the slumped, stiff and sore adults and sadly now the adolescents I treat today? Please read and learn from your toddler.

I have just had treatment from my physio for low back pain. Yes physios are vulnerable too. It was disc inflammation, exacerbated by leaning backwards whilst lifting my daughter Misaki or standing holding her on my front with poor posture. Thank goodness it settled very quickly with anti-inflammatories and physio exercises because you don’t want to get lingering back pain. Of course I know better but we are all human and slip up occasionally. Read my blogs on Carrying your baby Beyoncé style or not, Getting your baby in to the car safely and future blog Lifting your baby off the floor, bassinet, cot and high chair for practical advice and videos of how we should be moving!

Babies are perfect

Anyway, this blog is about my observation that babies and toddlers have the best manual handling skills ever! Look and learn. It is an absolute delight as a physio to watch Misaki move around, effortlessly displaying exquisite manual handling skills without a word of direction from me. It is natural for babies to squat to pick something off the floor, play in a squatted position, move their feet to turn around (rather than twisting their backs) and sit and stand with beautiful postures. Misaki would rather run to get places than walk. Children are generally so much more active than adults. They are generally naturals but you can encourage their sitting posture, strength and flexibility even further when they are babies following the careful advice in my blog Techniques to encourage a good sitting posture for life!

Disability

If your baby has no neurological or motor deficits she is likely to be doing the same. If they are not squatting to play and sitting and standing with good posture at the age appropriate time, get an opinion from a paediatric physio/ paediatrician. See Encouraging milestones in your baby for a guide on baby milestones. If you live in Australia and they have a disability, they may qualify for financial assistance for therapy from the new National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS).

The perfection is lost

So for those that are neurologically sound, where does it all go wrong for so many of us adults?! Well, we stop moving so much so we loose strength and flexibility in our muscles and joints so it is harder work to squat to pick something off the floor. Do you know that knee arthritis and need for knee replacements can be greatly reduced if we maintain good strength in our thigh muscles and knee flexibility. This can be done by walking up hills, running (with good technique), bike riding, rowing etc but also stretching.

“knee arthritis and need for knee replacements can be largely reduced if we maintain good strength in our thigh muscles and knee flexibility”

Sitting

We sit too much leading to muscle weakness and tightness which leads to poor standing and sitting posture. Think about how much of the day you sit? You probably sit to have all your meals, you sit on your commute to and from work, you sit at work/ while you are breast feeding (new mother work!) and you relax in front of the TV before you go to bed! Shocking but true. Sitting alone puts an enormous amount of pressure down on our discs, not far behind the pressure of lifting so this places our backs at risk of disc and other back injury.

“Sitting alone puts an enormous amount of pressure down on our discs, not far behind the pressure of lifting so this places our backs at risk of disc and other back injury. ”

Parenting and our bodies

I found as a new mother I was lifting and holding my daughter a lot but with correct manual handling and good muscle strength, potential injuries should be minimised. I found a lot of these lifting and holding risks were counteracted by the fact I was not sitting so much during the day, like when I was doing paid work. Moving around, walking and changing positions helps your spine considerably.

Protecting our children

So how do we make sure our children maintain good flexibility, strength, posture and manual handling skills so that don’t end up like a huge proportion of the adult population? It is scary how many adolescents I am seeing with back and neck pain. Their joints are stiff, their muscles and posture are weak. Why?

“It is scary how many adolescents I am seeing with back and neck pain”

Screen time

My husband and I are pretty much on the same team when it comes to parenting, we agree on most things. However, apart from my obsession with healthy eating, the biggest issue we have is screen time. I am against it: husband happy with it. The jury is out on the long term effects of screen time because there has not been enough time for longitudinal studies. They say that lots of love in the child’s life and lots of reading is important and maybe will combat potential effects of screen time but they just don’t know. There are studies showing that early use of drugs and alcohol in children leads to a higher chance of drug and alcohol addiction in their adult life, and that screens tend to be addictive so I am concerned that at the least, she might get addicted and not do her study in later years. Anyway, massive topic that not even the experts can definitively answer and not the point of this conversation! But please feel free to start a discussion of your opinions in the comments below. I would love some good studies to show my husband.

From a physiotherapy point of view, screen time on laptops, tablets and phones in particular are horrendous for posture and are thus causing pain, stiffness and weakness in children, something that we didn’t used to see. Now I may sound like a screen Nazi but they totally have their place when you are trying to have an adult conversation when out with your children. I shunned this behaviour before kids, but they are a life saviour in certain situations. The point is we have to minimise their screen time and if possible put it on the TV so they can be standing/ jumping around as they are watching rather than sitting slumped in the couch looking down at a tiny screen.

“screen time on laptops, tablets and phones in particular are horrendous for posture and are thus causing pain, stiffness and weakness in children, something that we didn’t used to see.”

Keeping active

Now to maintain their general strength and flexibility they just need to be actively playing when they are young, encouraging them to be outside and doing age appropriate activities. Kindergym and Gymbaroo are great ways to encourage movement and coordination skills when they are young and then there are activities such as swimming, ballet and “Readysteadygo” classes that teach skills in different sports. See my previous blog on Kindergym to ready more on the advantages of this. https://www.mummyotherapy.com/blog/2017/5/9/gymbaroo-kindergym-i-am-an-unco-will-misaki-be-one-too

If you can’t afford to take your children to these classes (it certainly adds up) going outside and playing with a ball can be just as good. I have started doing aerobics in front of the TV which has been great when Misaki is asleep but when she wont, trying to get her to join is frustrating as I am tripping over her as she moves erratically around the lounge room. If you let go of the idea of it becoming a work out for you and more entertainment and exercise for them, get them to jump around or do some yoga moves with you. Theoretically it should be a fun activity to share?!

So being generally active, stretching and minimising sitting, especially poor posture throughout their young lives and in to adult hood should minimise pain and injury from joint stiffness, muscle weakness and poor posture. We are born with it and need to treat our bodies as temples. We only have one. If not for ourselves, do it for your children.

Summary

Without neurological deficits, toddlers naturally develop perfect sitting and standing postures and have perfect manual handling such as squatting and lifting.

With general decreased movement, increased sitting, especially with poor postures with screen time adults and even adolescents develop weakness, stiffness, poor postures and manual handling which can result in pain and injury.

Maintaining strength and flexibility through active play and minimising screen time will help our babies maintain what they naturally have and prevent pain and disability.

Melli Tilbrook is a Physiotherapist based at Adelaide Physiotherapy and Pilates Studio, Beulah Park