Muscle tension is a routine examination that many hospitals will do when examining their babies. Some parents will feel nervous and worried when they hear doctors say that their babies [muscle tension is a little abnormal]:
Is high muscle tension cerebral palsy? Is hypotonia Down’s?
Today, we specially invited Liu Weimin, the core expert of Bao Xiulan’s team and chief medical officer of Bao Xiulan Center, to answer the 10 muscle tension questions that everyone is most concerned about.
1. Is muscle tension what? Is it what’s meaning to be high and low?
Muscle tension, that is, [muscle tension], refers to the strength generated by muscle cells pulling each other. Simply put, it is the tension of baby’s muscles in a quiet and relaxed state.
Muscle tension is the basis for maintaining various postures and normal movements of the body and can be manifested in various forms.
When some cranial nerves are damaged and lose control of the surrounding muscles, posture and motor function abnormalities will occur.
Low muscle tension means that if the muscle tension is insufficient, you will feel [the child is always weak].
High muscle tension means that the muscle tension is too high and feels like [the child is always stretched].
2. Is it high muscle tension that the baby looks up late/turns over late/steps on his feet? How should we judge correctly?
There are many criteria for judging hypertonia on the Internet, such as the baby’s late head-up, late turn-over, inability to hold his fist, and walking with his toes tilted. These cannot be used to judge the baby’s hypertonia.
Although we say that children have a general law of development, different children are different and cannot be applied across the board.
To judge whether a child has high muscle tension, professional doctors usually judge by the included angle of the baby’s muscles and joints.
In addition, it can also be judged by some passive behavior tests:
Hold the baby’s ankle and gently push the foot upward so that the foot surface is as close to the lower leg as possible. If the foot cannot be pushed or the baby has strong resistance, the possibility of high muscle tension needs to be considered.
3. Is high muscle tension cerebral palsy? Is it Down’s son who is on the low side?
No, this statement is confusing concepts.
Hypertonia is often the manifestation of cerebral palsy children, and hypotonia is often the manifestation of Down’s children, but it does not mean that cerebral palsy children or Down’s children have such manifestations.
Only when the baby with brain injury is identified can cerebral palsy be caused.
A normally born child is born smoothly at the time of birth, will cry at the time of birth, has no brain injury, and will develop normally in the future. Even if it shows low muscle tension, it will not suffer from cerebral palsy.
However, Down’s judgment requires chromosome examination to make a clear diagnosis.
You can’t judge as soon as you hear that muscle tension is high or low.
4. What are the causes of high muscle tension?
Hypertonia is generally related to brain diseases, of which cerebral palsy is one.
However, most of the references made by children’s health care doctors during the physical examination [the muscle tension of the baby is a little “high” or “low”] are only about the developmental differences of the baby.
This abnormal muscular tension increase in a specific period is not a real abnormality, and there may be three reasons:
(1) Particularity of neonatal period
It is normal for the whole body flexor muscle tension to be high in neonatal period. After 3 months, the passive muscle tension gradually decreases, and after 6 months, the flexor muscle tension further decreases and the extensor muscle tension further increases, thus preparing for standing.
(2) Influence of Baby’s Emotions
If the baby is nervous and cannot relax, he will naturally not cooperate during the examination, such as making [clenching his fist tightly], which will also affect the results of muscle tension examination.
(3) Resistance caused by tactile sensitivity
When some sensitive babies do these tests, they will show obvious resistance. This will also lead to the examination results that the baby’s muscle tension is on the high side.
5. Is the muscle tension of premature babies more likely to be abnormal?
Premature delivery is more likely to lead to low muscle tension in babies.
Compared with full-term babies, premature babies will lag behind in the development of motor ability and often show low muscle tension.
Usually doctors will make some development promotion programs according to the baby’s condition.
However, if the premature baby shows excessive muscle tension, it is very likely that there is a definite brain injury and further examination is needed.
6. The baby’s muscle tension is high. Will it recover on its own when it gets older?
As mentioned above, many babies’ muscular tension is not caused by brain injury, but by the resistance of tactile sensitivity.
In view of this situation, what parents need to do is not to treat or reduce muscle tension, but to give their children some [desensitization] exercises to relieve this sensitive state.
However, if the muscle tension is really too high due to brain injury, it cannot recover on its own, and standardized rehabilitation must be carried out as soon as possible.
The younger the age, the faster the brain develops, and the stronger the rehabilitation ability after the brain is injured.
7. How can children carry out rehabilitation training when they are diagnosed with high muscle tension? Can you do it at home?
First of all, we need to make a judgment: which muscle is causing the muscle tension problem? Upper limbs or lower limbs?
On the basis of evaluation, some targeted rehabilitation treatments will be given.
Rehabilitation training includes active guidance and passive pulling, which need to be reasonably arranged according to the situation of children.
The process of rehabilitation training should be continuous, so as to truly achieve the effect of relieving hypertonia.
Therefore, this kind of intervention and training also does not recommend parents to take the lead, and requires the guidance of professional teachers.
8. Can massage, passive exercise or massage relieve the problem of high muscle tension?
Yes.
[Massage] and [Massage] are essentially the same. They are more called massage abroad and massage at home, both of which are processes of [passive movement].
These methods can make the baby’s limbs flexible and relieve the problem of high muscle tension. However, whether it can be relieved for a long time still needs to be accumulated for a long time.
Compared with passive exercise, children’s active exercise is also very important.
In the process of doing these rehabilitation trainings, professional doctors will also guide the children’s emotions as much as possible so that the children are willing to cooperate and actively participate. Compared with passive exercise, this effect will be better.
9. Children have high muscle tension. Is swimming an effective way to recover?
Swimming is not an effective way to recover, but professional spa can.
Water itself is a very good lubricant. Children can achieve a therapeutic effect by doing some movements in the water, or doing some massage and pulling in the water.
However, this must be guided by a professional teacher. If you just bring your child a collar to swim, forget it.
10. Children have high muscle tension. Can they be vaccinated?
If the child belongs to non-pathological muscular tension is on the high side and there is no high risk factor for what in the body, normal vaccination can be given to such a child.
However, if the baby has some very clear high-risk factors, such as premature infants, hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy, or images show brain damage, vaccination is not recommended when the condition is not stable within 6 months.
After 6 months, some vaccination can be considered according to the situation of the child.