BABY’S UNNATURAL-LOOKING SHAPES

In the latter part of pregnancy the child has very cramped quarters in the uterus and therefore takes a position which will result in his occupying the least possible space. The legs, which to anatomists are only the parts from the knees to the ankles, are folded one upon the other. The hips are fully flexed; that is, the thighs are brought up snug against the belly. The knees are also flexed so that the calves are close to the back of the thighs. Then as the legs cross each other the sole of each foot is pressed against the opposite buttock. The feet are rolled in and they are in the position which all of you speak of as toeing in. As the child’s head is also held with the chin down on the chest, he comes pretty close to being a ball.

Baby’s unnatural-looking shapes
All of this results in the baby, when born, having a shape which just does not look natural to the uneducated eye.В  The appearance of the foot is often very suggestive of the ordinary type of club foot. But in club foot the tendons or ligaments are badly contracted and early and careful treatment is needed.
The turned-in foot of the normal child needs no treatment. The early painters, particularly when showing the Madonna and child, had the latter a miniature replica of a physically perfect man, beautifully proportioned and straight as an arrow. The newborn baby may indeed be beautiful but not at all with the proportions of the adult. If you look into the advertising pages of a modern magazine where there are good portraits of babies, you will see that the head is proportionately far larger than when the child has grown up.
Many children adopt the pre-natal folded-up attitude for some time after birth, particularly when asleep. Possibly this position delays the development of a mature shape but it is doubtful and anyway not important. Many races have adopted constriction and binding to influence the bodily shape. This causes abnormalities such as the misshapen foot of the ancient Chinese woman: it never aids in normal development. The infant who doubles himself into a ball and sleeps in the prone position – that is, with the back up – is a normal one. Several years ago I made a night flight across the Atlantic. Some time after midnight and several miles in the air I went back along the dimly lit aisle and saw in front of me on the floor an infant thus slumbering. The young mother said he refused to drop off to sleep in any other position and this was the only space she could find to accommodate him. So she cooperated with nature, with a wisdom attained by few of us.
Many doctors must have been consulted by anxious mothers who thought their children bowlegged. The crossing of the legs in the womb really does result in some bowing of the tibia, or large bone of the leg, which will straighten out later. These babies do not have rickets. When they begin to toddle about, it will be found that they have flat feet, another condition which has caused a lot of unnecessary perturbation. Many people certainly do worry about flat feet, and I tell them that it is unnecessary in these cases. And, along with the flat feet, the youngster has the habit of toeing in. Most of this effect usually occurs at the hip joint which, at this age, allows more of a rolling in of the whole limb than usually is present later. Many of these children are probably somewhat overweight which is not so bad as at a little later period.
If these specimens of childhood shapes really worry their parents, a gentle moving about of their limbs when asleep will show if they can be put easily into normal position. If that is so, the parents may be reassured that these conditions, which they think are deformities, will gradually correct themselves. Highbred dogs of the most graceful breeds are clumsy puppies to begin with. So it is with humans.
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WOMEN’S HEALTH