2nd opinion: baby splint suggested by hospital physio

[splreece]

hi all,

im a dad of 2.

a 4yr old and a 7 mth old.

my 7 mth old has always had little fingers on both hands that she doesn't bend fully... they are fully functioning and cause no obvious pain.

i had one nurse suggest it is habit, and stated its common babies bend using the main knuckle, not the finger knuckle, therefore its just getting her into the habit of using the knuckle........(makes sense to me).

my query is.... the nurse referred us to a physio, who..... strangely.... has suggested a splint?

do i decline or go for a second opinion... has anyone had experience of this with their child?

Shes my second so all my worrying went away after the first... however I wouldn't worry if she were older, but it looks dangerous to me, because if they damage her tendon.. thats her movement gone (i know as i have arthritis all over my body).

might be being silly.. but am not prone to sillyness normally... it just feels a wrong decision......
if i dont do it and her fingers don't straighten, as a child/toddler, bones are soft and pliable anyway so it could be done when they are stronger.

its just the nurse made perfect sense, but the physio made none whatsoever.

Sorry, but do you mean they don't bend fully (can't curl into a fist), or don't straighten properly? Because if not improved by 7 months then splints would make sense for the latter, but would seem a little unusual for the former. Correcting things tends to work bette rthe younger it's done...and if it's a tightness issue that isn't corrected can get worse as they grow, as the tight bit doesn't grow as fast, so the imbalance gets worse.

Really impossible to give individual advice over the internet - need to be able to feel the joints moving. What I would say is that a paediatric physio knows a lot more about how to get babies' joints moving properly than a nurse does.