What to do if your baby walks with his feet turned inwards? Here's how to correct it

Some babies turn their feet inward when they walk. If the baby is just learning to walk, parents don’t need to worry, as the baby will gradually recover as the baby grows older. But if the child is older, corrective intervention will be needed. If the condition is mild, it can be corrected at home.

What to do if your baby walks with his feet turned inward

1. Family correction: You can train by walking in a straight line. If the child is younger, parents can help the child practice from behind, put their hands under the child's armpits, and help the child walk along a wider straight line. During the walking process, parents should pay attention to letting the child's feet leave the ground, focusing on the toes. When the baby bends his knees and steps forward, there can be a slight friction between the two knees. Practice at least twice a day, and it will be effective only if you persist for a long time.

2. Surgical correction: Treatment through surgery, designed according to the principles of human biomechanics, scientifically corrects children's irregular foot forces and helps the foot bones grow healthily.

3. Correction by wearing special inward-facing orthopedic shoes. This type of shoe is customized according to the inward rotation of the baby's foot. The upper is high and can fix the baby's ankle joint. The bottom is made into a certain slope according to the cause of the baby's foot disease. As the baby's gait changes, a pair of shoes is generally replaced every six months.

Factors that cause babies to have inward-facing toes

1. Genetics: If one of the father or mother has an inward-turned or outward-turned toe, it can have a direct impact on the next generation.

2. Sitting posture (for example, when kneeling, the posture is W sitting posture, that is, when sitting, the feet are on both sides of the buttocks)

3. Calcium deficiency. When the calcium content in the bones of young children is low, the bones in the feet become irregular. Therefore, when walking and standing, the bilateral hip joints are easily separated due to the effect of gravity, thus forming "splayed feet".

It is best to correct the baby before the age of 12 when the bones have not yet been formed. Therefore, parents should help their children correct their bones as early as possible. The younger the child is, the easier it is to correct.

Children should not learn to walk too early

Infants have more colloid and less calcium in their bones, so their bones are soft. The muscles of the lower limbs and the small muscle groups that maintain the arch of the foot are not fully developed. If you let your baby learn to walk too early, the weight of the body will inevitably increase the burden on the spine and lower limbs, which will easily cause the spine and lower limbs to deform over time. Fat children should not learn to walk too early. Learning to walk too early will also affect children's learning to crawl. Crawling exercises have many benefits for children's development, but crawling is harder than walking, and the field of vision is not as high and far as walking. If you let your child learn to walk too early, the child will not be willing to crawl and choose to walk, thus missing the golden period of baby crawling exercises.

How babies learn to walk

1. Learn to stand

When the baby is 10-12 months old, he should learn to stand alone, and be able to switch from squatting to standing and from standing to squatting independently.

2. Walk with the handrail

Usually, after the baby can stand on his own, parents can start to let the baby walk with the help of the rails. After the baby can walk steadily with the help of the rails, parents can gradually hold the baby's hands and take a few steps.

3. Let go and walk

After the baby is walking steadily hand in hand, parents can stand half a meter apart, let go of the baby's hand, and at the same time encourage the child, "Baby, go find daddy."

Since the distance between them is not far, the child will take a bold step and rush to his father. "One step, two steps, great", with the encouragement and protection of his parents, the child will slowly learn to take a few steps alone.

4. Walking hand in hand

After the baby has walked a few steps steadily, parents can hold one of the baby's hands to practice walking. Later, the baby can practice walking by holding one of the mother's fingers. During this period, you can choose toys that can walk and make sounds when the baby is pulled. Toys will increase the baby's interest in learning to walk.

5. Intermittent release

After the baby becomes more proficient in the above walking, you can intermittently release his hand to give him the opportunity to walk independently, until he can walk completely independently.