my 11 month old baby cannot weight bear and can only crawl dragging his left leg, PLEASE HELP!

[cd19882011]

I called the HV last week and explained that my 11 month old baby is unable to weight bear and is crawling dragging his leg, she saw my son and referred him to the doctor who has now referred him to the hospital to re examine his 6 week scan they took of his hips when he was 6 weeks old (as he was breech).

We are now in limbo waiting to see here from the doctors weather they want him to come in for another scan or refer him to the leg specialist.
We were told at the time his hips where fine but now i am worried they are not.

Has this happened to anyone else? I am so worried about him

sorry I have not read all of this thread and am typing with one hand as have a clingy baby in arms.

DS1 has something called hemiplegia which is CP, but symptoms are on 1 side of the body.

We were fobbed off by HVs and GPs for ages> I found out later from our physio that we should have been directly referrred to a paediatric physio as they are trained to spot these things.

What you are describing could be hemiplegia, although it could be many things, including something that may pass. My advice would be to just push, push, push to be seen by a good hospital physio and paediatrician ASAP.

having read about rolling both ways - it probably is not hemiplegia.

I've heard back from the doctors regarding the x-ray results and my son's hips are fine can anyone give me any ideas of what it could be he is still not weight bearing although was at about 4 months and is still dragging his leg when crawling he can roll both ways confidently and has very good fine motor skills and speech. I am seeing the doctor on Friday but feel very worried about what it could be

some babies just crawl like this.

it can be absolutely nothing at all.

(in exactly the same way that some babies bum shuffle, some babies leapard crawl, and some babies never crawl at all, just pull up and walk one day)

can he move it happily and contendedly when he's lying on his back playing? does he do that feet in your mouth thing? what about nappy changes? does he kick his legs around?

honestly, i bet in a month or so when he's tottering around you will smile wryly.

He never does the foot in mouth thing, He can move both legs very well when not trying to crawl and will do anything not to have his nappy changed, he can kick both legs very well especially in the bath when most the water ends up over me and all over the floor.

Do you think any signs/symptoms shown could be cp?

no.

i really honestly don't. and cp where only one leg is affected (whilst theoretically possible - monoplegia) is vanishingly rare. if his hands and arms are fine and he;s crossing the midline etc, i would pretty much rule it out.

what happens when you hold him up by his hands/ under his armpits?

has he got an activity centre that he sit/ stands in to play?

i'm still pretty convinced that he just has an unusual pattern of crawling, but of course it's impossible to tell on tinternet, and you are obviously concerned, which is a reasonable sign that there might be a reason for concern, and so you need reassurance. (i have been concerned unnecessarily myself though )

if i were you, i would pop to the gp as you have an appointment, you can ask all the questions that you are concerned about (ask him about cp too, if you like - better fo you to have a face to face chat) ask if physio is necessary or would be useful, but then try to ignore it for another couple of weeks.

have a really lovely christmas and spend lots of time playing with him. (what happens if you'teach' him how to move btw? we taught dd2 to crawl using the stairs. i would kneel behind her and weight bear for her, and i would alternately move all four limbs in proper crawling fashion up one stair at a time. (she couldn't weight bear on the flat, but could take a little weight through her arms if she was more upright on the stairs, with me helping) the physio thought i was crazy. i would make her do it several times a day.

i put a toy on the next step up, so it was just play-physio really.
and eventually she did crawl, in proper reciprocal fashion. not all babies do though. you might just have one that doesn't.

(the foot in mouth thing was just an example to see if he could move it independently - only one of my three did it. not meanigful in any way other than as an example if he could do stuff with it)

does he w-sit by the way? better to discourage that if at all possible.

l'm so pleased nothing is wrong with his hips. My dd still doesn't crawl or roll (10months). I had all the thoughts of well what is else wrong then if she doesn't move. I have had endless conversations with dh and decided that if she's still not moving by 1 then we'll take up the offer of being referred to a pead until then it's just wait and see.

Babies really do make things up as they go along and think nothing of scaring the bejesus out of their mummys. I think if he's moving it normally when not crawling and using it to roll then its not hurting him. But still get him checked again if it gives you peace of mind.

NOTE: This is all from 30+ years ago!

My DD did that sort of crawling - she'd tuck her right leg under her, raise herself up on her hands and her right knee, propel herself forwards and land on her stomach; all the while dragging her left leg. She could happily cover quite some distance doing that. But she was a few months younger than your DS at the time and she was a rather "stiff" baby, and struggled to roll from her back to her front for quite a long time.

She did eventually get to the stage of pulling herself up onto her feet, around the age of 9 months, but couldn't walk unaided because she walked on tiptoes on her left foot which, of course, did nothing to help her balance. She was eventually checked by a doctor at the HV clinic who said she had tight tendons in her left leg and recommended proper walking shoes which encouraged DD's left foot to form a right-angle to her leg and therefore stretch the tendons. It didn't take too long before she was toddling around.

As I said above: this is all from a long time ago when protocols/scans (actually, lack of them) were very different from today. As long as they've ruled out any obvious problems, it might just be "one of those things" that he'll eventually (as in: fairly quickly) grow out of. But it is always worth getting these things checked out because, although in my DD's case it was tight tendons that were easily resolved, it could be that an assessment by a paediatric physiotherapist could be helpful.

Thank you, You really have made me feel so much better :),

My son had a bouncy toy called a bounceroo which he sat outside in during the summer and he would just put his feet down to bounce and bounce and inside had an activity centre (He is to big for it now) which he was never fully wait bearing on.

If i hold him by his arm pits he will always hold his L-leg slightly up and almost tries to bounce,

I'm going to try tomorrow to teach him to go up the stairs like you said might put some chocolate buttons in front of him or some toys as that sounds like a really good idea.

That is a very good point as i have never put my baby in shoes as i thought it was not good for them but actually that might just give him a bit more stability crawling and having something solid to push off from rather than his socks especially as we have laminate flooring

Aaah! The physio we saw told us that lots of babies don't crawl on tiles or laminate.

I went to the doctors today and he said my child was crossing and scissoring his legs he was not in the best of moods to say the least as i think most of the people in the waiting room heard him as he is not very well so the doctor has asked us to come back next week,

I'm of course very worried about him and was wondering if anyone else's child did this as i know these are signs of CP

Hi cd19882011! How is your child now? It has been almost a year. Just came across this post.