10 month old - hypermobility?

[Moonshine160]

Hi. My DS is 11 months old next week and cannot sit up without support, roll from back to front, crawl, pull himself up on furniture, basically make any attempts to move. He can weight bear on his legs for a couple of seconds before they bend. We paid privately to see an osteopath as our hospital referral was taking ages and she said he has a curved spine and twisted ribs. X rays have been done now which show they are fine so that isn’t the case. We have been seen twice now by the hospital and the first consultant said that he has high muscle tone around his chest area from having reflux previously which is probably preventing him from sitting. The second consultant we saw noticed that when I was playing on the floor with DS, I sit with my legs bent in a W shape. I have done this all my life and people used to comment on it and think it was strange but I’d never really looked into it, I just feel comfortable sat that way. She said that I probably have hyper mobile joints in my hips and knees and it’s hereditary so DS probably has this too which is why he has delayed development. He has been referred for urgent physio due to his age and this starts on Friday so I’m hoping I’ll find out more then, but does this sound like hyper mobility? What might it mean for his development? At the moment I’m scared he’ll never be able to even walk with the way things are going. He’s making no progress at all. His other areas of development are absolutely fine. I was initially worried about cerebral palsy after too much googling but all health professionals that we’ve seen have said they’re confident it’s not that. But if physio is unsuccessful then the next step is an MRI of his brain and I’m just so scared.

Hi @Moonshine160 Have you seen the other recent thread on hypermobility. You may find some of the advice there helpful.
They may be querying whether your son has Hypermobility Spectrum Disorder/Ehlers Danlos? Hugs 💐
I have an older son with hypermobile joints. It sounds like the health professionals are on the ball! Let us know how you get on.
It may be helpful to have a look at the Ehlers Danlos Society website.

I hope you got some answers from the physio. My son is quite similar and has recently been diagnosed with Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA) is a rare, genetically inherited neuromuscular condition. It causes progressive muscle weakness and loss of movement due to muscle wasting (atrophy). This may affect crawling and walking ability, arm, hand, head and neck movement, breathing and swallowing. It's a really frightening diagnosis and I really hope this is not the case for your son, but there is a treatment available and the sooner it is started the better. Perhaps you could ask for a neurology referral just to rule i
t out.

My son is hypermobile but it didnt bother him to the extent of your child so keep progressing with everything.

He was delayed but what I will say is once he got to grips with his stomach muscles everything changed so quickly. He commando crawled first of all (he had no strength to keep his middle off the ground) and once he pulled himself along the floor by sheer will, he learnt to reverse.

Once he reversed backwards, he got the knack of sitting as he pushed backwards into a sit. Then learnt to fall forwards and hold onto stuff. Then climb.

It was amazing watching his sheer strength of will pulling himself around. He wasnt sitting up at 9 months.

He first crawled forwards at 10 months and was 'walking' by 12 as he got the knack and learnt his balance.

He saw a physio around 6 months of age who didnt display much concern he just needed a bit of extra work.

At 4 years old we paid privately to see a physio as I just knew he was hypermobile, but all children are to a certain extent.

Sorry I rambled on so much there and most of it probably irrelevant. Just wanted to explain what hypermobility meant to my baby and he wasnt even really diagnosed with it till he was older. And that your son may turn a corner quickly in his own time. Best of luck with it all

Thanks all. @GloGirl thanks for your reply, sounds quite similar to my DS actually. He went to his first physio session on Friday, I mentioned hypermobility but the physiotherapist didn’t seem overly concerned. She seems to think that with regular sessions and exercises at home he will be fine and the delay in development is probably due to how much he hates tummy time. I blame myself a little bit because I probably haven’t given him enough but he hates it so much and cries and immediately rolls onto his back so he doesn’t really know how to use his core muscles because he hasn’t gained the strength to. We’ve had to take it right back to basics and get the tummy time roll back out as he’ll tolerate it a little better on this and do some other exercises with him and we’re already seeing improvements. I hope that once he gains the strength then he’ll do everything all at once a bit like your DS did! Here’s hoping anyway... x