As a parent, you want to support your baby through their developmental milestones.
Something important to notice is if your baby seems to be favoring one side. If this is the case, it may be an indication that they need to have their body alignment checked out by a professional.
Examples of favoring one side includes:
- turning their head to one side
- kicking to one side
- rolling to one side
- crawling funny to one side
It’s a common belief that if babies favor one side, it means that the right or left hand is dominant. However, this isn’t true. Right or left hand dominance develops later in life, usually after the age of one or two years old. One-sidedness in infancy (from birth to age one) is often due to tightness or pain in the baby’s body that needs loosening.
Because babies haven’t had years to develop bad posture and tension like adults, they respond much faster to care- whether it be muscle work or light adjusting. A combination of targeting the muscles, moving the joints, and demonstrating to the babies how to move their bodies to the other side can be really impactful.
A common misconception is that babies will reach developmental milestones when they’re “ready” and will catch up if they are behind. It’s crucial to support babies based on where they’re currently at developmentally. If it appears they may be struggling to reach a milestone, or if they appear to have skipped a milestone, taking time to evaluate the reason why is important.
One common reason for development delay is when babies experience tightness in their muscles. A baby will subconsciously resist any movement that is uncomfortable or painful for their little bodies and will try to find another way to compensate for the pain, and move in a different manner. Babies usually don’t push through the pain in a way that adults do.
To sum up, babies might crawl, walk or roll strangely because they are avoiding something. As a chiropractor, these are indications that some work needs to be done.
Written by: Dr. Jenine McCann