My niece had a traumatic birth and was on life support for the first week of her life. She is now 13.5 months old and has crushed all the early predictions.

She was able to sit at about 10 months of age, and can now sit up from laying down and go back to the floor again. It sometimes takes a little while for her to get her legs around the front.

She has been diagnosed with mild CP (cerebal palsy), and has muscle tightness in her legs and she points her toes and her feet twist in (sometimes not all the time). She has recently been given AFOs (the hard plastic splints from toes to below knees) to lengthen her achilles. She is meant to wear them all the time, except when in bed.

The AFOs make it harder for her to do the things that she has finally learnt how to do, e.g. go from laying to sitting. I wonder if they will upset her development, even temporarily. They will also make crawling harder bc of the way they hold her feet at 90deg.

I also worry about them causing muscle weakness.

Any others have experience with AFOs in those not yet walking? crawling?

Ta,

Kate