United Brachial Plexus Network, Inc.

Hi, my 8 month old daughter has a brachial plexus injury to her left shoulder, she was injured during delivery. My concern is that she is not crawling at all, and she sits up ok if I help her into a sitting position but she will not sit up on her own. she will lay on the floor and hold her head up like she is trying to do a sit up but that is as far as she gets. I know that she has no muscle tone in her left bicepe(sp?) She is going to have surgery on Nov. 14 th at children's hospital in Milwaukee. Has anyone else's kids with BP injury done the same as her? or did they crawl and sit up on their own just fine? right now she rolls everywhere that she want's to go. she is in therapy has been since she was about 2 weeks old. I'm a concerned mother and would like to know if this has happen to anyone else?
thanks,
Bonnie

Here's a thread of some other mother's who were having a discussion about crawling.
http://ubpn.org/messageboard/thread ... 372#152372
Hope it give you some info until you get more answers.
Sie

Hi, My daughter never crawled. She always scooted on her behind until she learned to walk. Her therapists and doctors said not to worry about it. EXCEPT...it is important that her affected arm receive weight-bearing exercise. Maybe your therapists already do so, and hopefully you do at home. Obviously, crawling would give her weight-bearing without the therapy, but that just wasn't possible for my daughter, and it seems not for yours either. If you are confident that your doctors and therapists are capable in the treatment of her injury, then I would not worry about what milestones your daughter misses/does not accomplish at all. Most of us with children who are past the infant stage can testify that our worries about whether our children would turn out "normal" proved to be unfounded. In fact, many of them have completely passed our expectations. I'm sure yours will too. Good luck!

Amy, Lexi's mom ROBPI, 5 happy years old

Hi Bonnie,
I now have an 8 month old, who sounds just like your little one. It did help to hear from other parents about crawling/not crawling.

What surgery did you have on the 14? I hope that everything went well.

Frankie never crawled but by 9 months was walking. Its very important they do weight bearing like the wheel barrel walking we did this alot with a toy in fromt of him but frankie used a splint to prevent injury to his wrist I would get a therapist's help if possible
Mare

As an OT, the one concern I would have about not crawling is reflex integration. When a child learns to crawl some of their birth reflexes are integrated into their system. Without the integration, kids can demonstrate some difficulties later with sensory concerns, etc. Do some research on reflex integration and find a therapist in your area who is familiar. There are ways to simulate the movements through exercising, weight bearing work, etc. Anything you can do to encourage similiar movement would be great!

My 2 yr old son has a left bpi. I made a web page dedicated to him you should check it out. http://www.freewebs.com/leftbpi/

My daughter Hannah is 18 months and still not standing on her own or walking. She started rolling to get where she wanted to go around 10 months and military crawling at about a year. We are taking her to a neurologist in March just to rule out any other problems, but I really think its all due to the strength of that arm and balance. Good luck to you, I guess we just have to be a little patient about these milestones, I was expecting a toddler last summer, but she will get there soon.

My son is now i and a half years old and he also didnt crawl, he just went straight to walking. I t also took him a while to sit up on his own. So just be patient and everything will be fine.

Matthew started crawling at around 13 months and then started walking on his own about 2 weeks after that.