United Brachial Plexus Network, Inc.

I'm working with a 4 year old boy with bilateral bpi. He has bowel and bladder control, but not enough arm strength to pull his pants up & down - even sweatpants. We're experimenting with adaptations. Any ideas?

Maia is 3 1/2 and has left obpi. We have been working on this for a long time. We started out by using costumes - very large pants that she had to try and get off. And now we are working our way to smaller pants - very loose fitting - I buy pants that are one or two sizes larger (loose knits). I think that the waist band on sweats might be too tight... well they definitely are too tight for Maia.

I just can't imagine a bilateral bpi... that is unbelievable. I really feel for this little one and for his family. It's very sad.

-francine

this may sound strange but we have started with daddys boxers. its easy for her. it gets the motion down pat. of course she can't where them out but. it has given her the self conidence to try smaller pants

Thanks! I'd already recommended changing to boxers, hoping he could at least manage urination independently. Practicing with extra large boxers is a great idea!
Does your child have a bilateral injury?
-Cathy, OT

some reason my name showed up as NULL. who nows. Jade is left BPI. she has a be big problem with pants and undies

My son has a right arm obpi. He is 3 1/2 and just potty trained because of his injury. He too had no strength and couldn't manage to get his pants down in time. I too used larger pants and underwear than necessary, this seemed to help. Now that he has control, I started using his size underwear and he can do it. It took me 3 months to potty train. I thought I would Go crazy before we were through.

On our son we used sweatpants, that are a size or two bigger, and t-shirts that are bigger. He would also not want to wear underwear, because he could not get them on. We went to underwear 2 sizes bigger also. This helped a little.
Hope this helps,
God bless this family, I feel for them also.
Debbie