Ludmila Kozlova: "You should trust doctors"

Vestnik Kavkaza continues the cycle of the program 'Ask Dr. Kozlova'. Honored Scientist of the Russian Federation, pediatrician, the Deputy Head of the Federation Council Committee for Social Policy, Ludmila Kozlova, answers questions of readers, listeners, and viewers of Vestnik Kavkaza. Ludmila Vyacheslavovna is the senator from the Smolensk region.

Today Dr. Kozlova speaks about development of child under 1 year.

- How seriously should parents be about a child's development standards? Starting from what abnormality should we go to a doctor? Our reader sent us a letter: “I have a little girl of 10 months, 10.5 kilograms, 80 centimeters, we have only just begun to crawl forward and we are not walking at all."

- Your child fits into the normal indicators of all the standards that are being used now. In 2006 the World Health Organization issued new standards of increases in weight and height of children of different ages. We should trust the standards. Although there are a lot of factors that affect the physical development. Heredity, for example, and if the child's parents, for example, during the first year of their lives, in their development, an excess of growth was noted, and they did not match the standards, or there was a lower limit of the weight, then the same trend can be expected in their children. You should trust doctors. Every month in the first year of life doctors examine children. And the doctor will immediately tell you whether or not there are deviations.

- Now there is an opposite situation. An 11-months-old child started to walk, but does not know how to crawl. Should we worry about this?

- Firstly, crawling is one of the child's development standards too. But it does not mean that all children must crawl. And sometimes we are seeing the following picture: the child begins to sit, then stand up and walk, and does not crawl. For a child to crawl, he must be on a hard surface, naturally, but more often a child is either on a bed or on a cot, limited in its size, or on a couch. And it should not be of concern if he corresponds to his age on other standards, for the rest of it corresponds to the age. Life shows that in the future, these children not only don't lag behind (if they develop with sufficient attention from parents and others very well) both in their mental and physical development.

- Is it harmful to use walkers and jumpers?

- This question is one of the most controversial in pediatrics. It has both ardent supporters and ardent opponents. Some think that they help in acquiring the skills of walking, some, on the contrary, say that usually children who are in baby walkers and use walkers and jumpers, in the future they begin to walk later, because they have no skills of keeping the body balanced.

But when there are diametrically opposite points of view, the truth is somewhere in the middle. Usually. Of course baby walkers are an opportunity for women who raise their children by themselves, without the help of grandparents or anyone in general, who have no opportunity to hire babysitters, to deal with something. It is possible to grow a healthy, smart, good, developed child both by using walkers and not using them. But a child should not have to be in it constantly. With such a reasonable approach it can be used.

- When a child stands his feet are x-shaped. Should we think about orthopedic shoes?

- There is no need to think about orthopedic shoes, if he does not have some kind of orthopedic pathology. I would advise to ask orthopedists, an orthopedist will see if there is anything wrong with him.

- What should the first children's shoes be like?

- A child starts wearing shoes when he or she firmly stands on their feet. Prior to that, it is necessary to use baby socks or knitted booties, so that the feet are in warmth and not restricting freedom of growth and development.

The material from which the shoes are made should be natural. It is necessary to correspond to the size. The distance between a child’s toe and the top of the shoe should approximately correspond to the thickness of an adult’s finger, so that it does not interfere with the growth and development of the foot. The back of the shoes should be really quite hard. The sole should also be natural or grooved, to avoid sliding. And it is good when there is a small heel, so that the arch of the foot is not disturbed. The first shoes should reach above the ankle.