Low muscle tone
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Anonymous
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Does anyone have experience with low-muscle tone in a seemingly developmentally normal infant?
DC was full term, rolled both ways on time, maintains appropriate eye contact, smiles socially, etc. but pedatrician is unsure as the cause/reason for the low tone. No feeding issues (is fine with solids and self-feeds with pincer grasp). DC is in physical therapy but is predicted to be late to hit gross motor milestones. I'm unsettled and not sure what this quite means. Any experience? |
Anonymous
| My dev ped has told me all kids she sees with delays have low tone, unless, of course, there is CP and they have high tone. Hypotonia is a separate, free standing diagnosis sometimes but often goes along with other delays. It is probably neurological. |
Anonymous
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How did they diagnose low tone? It doesn't sound like your child has the typical markers – isn't floppy, example.
I'll only throw this out there, take it with a grain of salt. My pediatrician insisted when my third child came in for her four-month checkup that she had torticollis, or a head tilt. I had never noticed a thing, and I have two others kids who have had varying degrees of all kinds of little bumps and quirks throughout their young years. She said she would evaluate again at 6 months. I never saw a single indicator of what she was talking about, and mentioned it again at her 6-month checkup, as in, I still hadn't noticed anything. I even looked at old photos, saw nothing. She agreed with me, then cocked her head, looked at DD again, and said, "Nope, I still see it. Have her seen by Infants and Toddlers." Now, given that my son had speech therapy with ITP as a toddler, I think they're great, but I really did not think this baby needed physical therapy. But when I tried to politely decline, she basically threatened me – said that she would know from records whether I actually called them or not. I went home and called ITP and they came out. Happily declared, with the PT in tow, that she was the healthiest and happiest on-par baby they had seen and told me not to worry about a thing, she was perfect. I promptly changed pediatricians later that afternoon. |
Anonymous
| Agree with PP. my DS has hypotonia and neuro-related challenges like motor planning and visual motor integration. He is now 5 and the challenges become more pronounced/apparent as children age. |
Anonymous
And by PP, I meant the first responder in this thread. |
Anonymous
Was he on track as an infant? |
Anonymous
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My son had low tone (hypotonia) and he was late to crawl and walk. He is quite uncoordinated - learning how to do things like swim, climb stairs one at a time, throw, catch - were all challenging for him. Took him much longer to learn how to swim than a typical kid, etc.
He is now a 9th grader and is doing fine. Loves to watch sports but has never been able to play competitively. |
Anonymous
NP here. Both my kids were on track as infants and both have hypotonia, speech delays, and other neuro-related challenges as well. Yes, low tone is forever, but it doesn't always mean something bigger is going on. Getting PT to help with gross motor is a good thing. |
Anonymous
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My child met all infant / toddler milestones on time. Hyptonia diagnosed at 5. Couldn't go down the stairs with alternating feet. It's mild but it's there. Didn't meet the floppy infant description at all.
What is your situation, OP? |
Anonymous
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Older mom here. Child was "low tone". Delayed sitting, rolling over, never crawled, late walker. PT all the way through school. OT all the way through school.
He is still, in his late 20s, low tone. Klutzy, poor at sports, uncoordinated. But he did graduate from a 4 year college and he can drive a car. Holds a job. But as musch as he wanted to play team sports, he just could never do it. |
Anonymous
Kids with CP can have low tone, high tone, or a mixture of both. |
Anonymous
| All of my research and input from professionals at the time we discovered low tone in my DD was that it's one of those things that really can exist totally separate from anything else. It didn't happen to in our case - though I don't actually thing the other things that developed over time are necessarily related - but it is one of those odd might just be in isolation things. Also being on target for milestones now is good - we were slightly delayed by the 6 month mark, though it was mostly picked up due to some oddities in movement rather than the delays themselves, and actually with PT weren't that far behind gross motor wise. |
Anonymous
| I don't think it's usually isolated, not to be doom and gloom. It's a sign that there something a little off in the brain. Most kids with add have low tone. |
Anonymous
OP here. Thanks for all of the input. Uneventful pregancy and delivery. Great nurser, eater, sleeper. Head control was strong. Rolled over on time, met all social milestones on time. No excessive drooling. Fine motors skills are on target (a tad advanced). First sign was at scheduled well-checkup with not being able to sit unassisted. This carried on for a while and it became apparent there is no interest in crawling, rocking on all fours, etc. Ped didn't think anything else was out of the ordinary, but gross motors skills were behind. PT didn't see any huge red flags. Weekly progress is being made, but baby is still behind. |
Anonymous
| Not sitting is a big deal so it's awesome that you're on it. My kid has low tone and ADHD. |