Complaints & connections · borters.ch
Straightenable means harmless and mostly grows out — not straightenable and increasing belongs looked at.
Also known as: posture in children · school bag · slouching · growth spurt · rounded back in adolescence · Scheuermann
Open in the tool — with search and all the links →This compilation is for information and replaces neither medical diagnosis nor treatment. If you have symptoms, see a doctor.
A bent posture in children regularly worries parents, and most of the worries can be defused with numbers. The commonest form is a postural weakness: the position can be actively straightened, what is missing is the endurance of the holding muscles, and it improves with movement and with the end of the growth spurt. What showed no connection with the arising of a scoliosis in studies are of all things the things most often blamed: school bags, carrying on one side, sitting posture and sport. For the weight of the bag there is a common recommendation of about ten to fifteen per cent of body weight; it rests on measurements of posture and discomfort while carrying and not on a link with lasting deformity. What does deserve attention is a rounded back in adolescence that cannot be straightened and increases during growth — a growth disorder of the vertebral bodies can lie behind it.
Ask the child to make itself tall, or let it hollow its back on all fours. If the rounding disappears in the process, it is mobile. If it stays, it belongs looked at — especially if it increases during the growth spurt.
About ten to fifteen per cent of body weight is the common recommendation, and it rests on measured posture and discomfort while carrying. A link with lasting deformity could not be shown. Using both straps and carrying close to the back is the practical part.
The instruction to sit up straight lasts seconds — strength and endurance last months. In studies of schoolchildren posture was more closely linked with the amount of movement than with the furniture. Climbing, hanging and romping reach exactly the muscles at issue.
A rounded back that cannot be straightened and increases during growth, back pain in a child that wakes it at night, a curve with a visible rib hump on forward bending, or a child that suddenly limps: those are the patterns that belong examined — the rest as a rule grows out.
Low values over a long time cause a dull ache in bones and trunk-near muscles, morning stiffness and weakness when rising from a chair. This is often blamed on posture.
A child who constantly slumps and complains of tiredness may not have a posture problem. During growth and at the onset of periods iron deficiency is common — and low drive is its first sign.
In children the change says more than the single finding. The forward bend test every few months, plus height — growth spurts are when things shift. A lab value is added only if something stands out.
During growth the one number that really counts — not for posture but for the bone being built. At our latitudes it is low in many children from October to March.
Without vitamin D only a fraction of the calcium from food is absorbed. It is therefore not one nutrient among others but the doorman for the most important one.
The building material itself. What counts is not the single portion but the amount over years — bone is remodelled lifelong, with peak mass around thirty.
During a growth spurt bone is built faster than at any other time of life. If material is missing, the mass is made up later — but not completely.
No preparation straightens a child’s posture. What vitamin D does concerns bone and muscle strength during growth, and a marked deficiency makes muscle weakness and bone pain. It is measured on suspicion and not in advance — in the growing years amounts of their own apply.
The connection often overlooked here: an iron deficiency makes tiredness and quick exhaustion — and a tired child sinks together no matter how often it is reminded. Ferritin is, with one-sided eating and during the growth spurt, one of the most worthwhile measurements; iron on suspicion, by contrast, is not, because too much does harm.
The growth spurt is when something shifts in the spine — and the time when it can still be influenced. After the growth plates close, the shape is largely set.
In girls the time around the first period is the critical phase: the growth spurt is steepest then, and little growth remains afterwards.
Bone is built until around the age of thirty, fastest during the growth spurt. Calcium and vitamin D in that time are not a measure against posture but for what comes after.
For everything to do with statics, the method with the most data. What matters is not the kind but that it happens at all, and regularly — the back holds what it does daily.
It is not the session that works but what continues at home afterwards. After four to six appointments you can judge whether anything is moving.