It is very common for children they sit with their legs out, as if forming a W. This posture, also called the "inverted tailor posture"It is quite common among the little ones, especially when they sit down to play since it makes it easier for them to touch and manipulate toys.
For them it is a comfortable and natural posture, although it may seem uncomfortable to us or cause them pain. Is this position harmful to its development? Can it have consequences in the future? and the most common question, Should we correct their posture?
Enrique Puchol, head of the Traumatology and Child Orthopedics Unit at La Fé Hospital in Valencia, explains why children have a tendency to sit in this position:
"This way of sitting is not caused by a pathology but by an arrangement of the hips in children that is a variant of normalcy."
Many children have a natural predisposition to sit this way, because they are born with a tendency to femoral anteversion, a condition where the femoral neck attached to the hip leans forward, which causes the lower leg to turn inward and the knees and hips are not in line.
This anteversion of the femur that puts the hip more forward usually causes children to run with their feet inward and in a structured way. This condition is gradually corrected in childhood until it disappears "between 10 and 12 years in girls and a little later, towards 14 years in boys," says Puchol.
Should we correct their posture?
If your child has the habit of sitting like this always or almost always, nothing may happen, but it is also possible that the repeated and prolonged posture in time cause alterations in the bones of the hip and legs, and that instead of correcting the femoral anteversion as it should be, it ends up getting worse.
What we should do is prevent them from holding this position repeatedly and for long periods of time, but never scold or scare them that they are going to deform their legs or similar things.
Nor should we overwhelm them if they are focused on their game, but we can try to do things so that vary posture during your play periods. A good advice is to ensure that they play in a way that they are forced to sit differently.
For example, we can put a chair and a table at their height to play there or if they play on the floor accommodate cushions to support the back and avoid placing the legs back.
The correct thing is that the children feel with the legs forward, that they can place them both open and crossed "like the Indians".
Remember that as always when it comes to instilling good habits, we have to do it with much patience.
We must encourage them to adopt good postural habits during its growth stage to avoid future problems. Anyway, if your child adopts this posture, it is usually best to discuss it with the pediatrician who will assess the situation.
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