Helping your Baby to Practice Natural Posture

Did you know that when they are young, sitting babies align themselves in gravity, with their spine straight right on through to their necks, so that the head is beautifully balanced and they are not under any strain? As they get older, badly designed buggies and furniture, misconceptions about posture, and even telling a child to "sit up straight" can all cause unnatural stress and back pain in later years.

In this Throwback Thursday, where we select a favourite or useful article from the Born blog archives and re-share, we've chosen a blog from 2013 written by Yoga teacher Clare Chapman, sharing the advice of natural posture guru Esther Gokhale of how to support your child in retaining their natural position through early years and beyond.

Clare's article on child development and posture is very much in tune with our approach here at Born and the reason we are so fussy about the Baby Carriers, Pushchairs and Footwear that we stock.


Good back health for parents and babies by Clare Chapman 

Every parent asks, “How can I best hold, carry and transport my baby and toddler?” After all, children just don’t come with a care manual! Yet, for thousands of years it was simple… everyone, including older siblings, adopted the traditions of the role models around them.

Today, of course, we raise our children in a very different context. We live in an industrialized, high-tech, consumer society. We have an unprecedented array of products such as slings, car seats and pushchairs to choose from, and can consider how each brand shapes up against various criteria – safety, budget, ease of use, style, multi-functionality, etc. But there is another, hugely significant yet little-known factor to guide our decision making, and its effect on our children will literally last a lifetime…

Since the industrial revolution families have become more geographically dispersed, with parents often raising smaller families many miles away from grandparents and other extended family. This has led to a break in all sorts of cultural transmission, including the handing down of tried and tested (body movement) traditions. Probably the most significant postural shift occurred in the 1920s as the new generation abandoned what came to be seen as the rather formal uprightness of the pre World War I era in favour of a more casual, slouched body language. For the first time it became widely fashionable to tuck the pelvis and tail under and droop the shoulders forward, a position reflected in furniture such as the Mies van der Rohe chair and the ‘flapper-girl’ fashions.

1920s ‘Flapper’ fashion encouraged tucking the pelvis.

Over successive generations this tucked posture has increasingly come to be viewed as normal. Open any fashion magazine or people-watch from the coffee shop, and in all probability, that’s what you’ll see. Such distorted posture is a cultural blind-spot that Esther Gokhale is determined to bring under scrutiny, having herself suffered agonizing back pain when pregnant with her first child. After unsuccessful surgery and medical advice not to have any more children, she dedicated herself to addressing the causes of so much back pain and structural problems in our culture. Now with three grown-up children, Esther is author of ‘8 Steps to a Pain-Free Back’ and has established the Gokhale Method(c) to share her research, understanding, and eminently practical approach with the public.

Gokhale found compelling evidence that our loss of traditional body wisdom has resulted in a much poorer level of musculo-skeletal health in contemporary industrialized societies than is found in our traditional counterparts. For example, traditional communities she researched extensively in parts of Africa, India, Brazil and Southern Europe report an astoundingly low (5% - 7%) incidence of back and joint pain despite long hours of manual or sedentary labour. In the UK the rate is over 80%, and back, hip, knee, neck, shoulder and foot problems are affecting people at an increasingly young age.

Unfortunately, we often unwittingly undermine the healthy instincts that our infants are born with because of our modern misconceptions about the human form. For example, because we now think it is normal to tuck the pelvis under, you see babies held with the parent’s forearm tucking baby’s bottom under – this prevents her from stacking her spine on her own. We don’t realize we are ‘wiring in’ poor habits for our children.

If you observe almost any one or two year-old, you will see natural, healthy posture in action. When seated on the floor for example, babies will automatically sit right on their sitting bones without slumping or slouching. Gokhale Method(c) teachers would describe this as having the pelvis positioned in “anteversion”, that is, not tucked under, but rather, slightly tipped forward, rested on the sitting bones. From this foundation babies and young children align themselves in gravity, with their spine straight right on through to their necks, so that the head is beautifully balanced. Because they do this naturally when ready to sit up unaided, there is no strain. The head does not have to be ‘held up’ and is free to turn effortlessly. So, as baby becomes able to sit on her own, let her sit on your forearm with her pelvis tipped forward in this way. Notice that she will naturally stack up without any difficulty.

The toddler stacks effortlessly upright with her bottom behind her. (c) Esther Gokhale

As for carrying infants for longer periods, in most parts of Africa, for example, young babies are wrapped onto their mother’s backs, held securely with fabric. Their bottoms are supported and their backs are stretched in a lengthened position. Larger infants will be carried with their legs out at to each side. Allowing their legs to externally rotate in this way helps prevent hip dysplasia and allows the immature hip sockets to ossify in a healthy way. What a contrast to some modern pushchairs, their concave bucket-style seats and saggy footrests encouraging the hips and legs to internally rotate, setting children up to have knock-knees and fallen arches.

Mother carrying infant, Burkina Faso, Africa

To help promote a long and healthy spine with proper pelvic positioning, ideally you would carry your baby on your body as much as possible. If you are looking for a modern body carrier for a baby/toddler, find one where the baby/toddler’s bottom has space to remain behind her, such as The Ergobaby, for example. To carry your baby on your front, you can use a sling, choosing one that holds baby as close to your body as possible. The closer the better, both for baby and for you. If the sling does curve the baby’s spine somewhat, are you balancing the time your baby spends in the sling with time spent getting some gentle stretch in his torso?

Parents in our culture often find that their own structure can’t sustain this degree of load comfortably, (that’s another blog!), and of course slings and carriers are not always practical in our inclement weather. Sooner or later, it is important to know what to look for in a pushchair or buggy.

Unfortunately, many buggies available today are molded in a ‘C’ shape, which will be the position recreated in the baby’s back. This curve will collapse a baby’s spine, tuck the pelvis under, and bend her neck forward. Slumping like this will squash and inhibit the functioning and development of baby’s lungs and digestive organs. In addition to forcing baby to sit poorly, consider also that she may be in these carriers for hour after hour, sometimes from the car, out, and back in to the car again. Such furniture can become the chief culprit in breeding familiarity with the poor sitting patterns that set kids up for slouching and poor bending habits.

Slumping will inhibit the functioning of baby’s lungs and digestive organs.

The more traditional pram is great in that it gives baby the chance to stretch out on his back or to be angled up towards sitting with a straight, not curved, spine. Try and avoid sole use of pushchairs where you just click in a curvy car seat. Almost all infant car seats are slightly curved, and for safety reasons, you may not be able to avoid them nor is it advisable to modify them. Try to minimize the time your baby spends in car seats, and of course, leave the seat in the car rather than restricting your little one to this compromised position.

As your babe grows and can sit upright, find a car seat with a 90-degree angled seat. Watch out for protective side panels that will push a child’s shoulders forward as they outgrow the seat. Also watch for deep, padded side panels to the seat that prevent children from resting with their knees naturally apart. Avoid soft, dish-shaped seats (like in umbrella strollers) that encourage the child’s legs to rotate internally. You want to give the child room to scoot her rear end back and then stack the spine long - just like she naturally sits. Sometimes you can help this along with strategically placed folded towels, for example.

As your toddler begins to walk, he will use an innate reflex that allows his feet to play an active part in this new skill. The grab reflex babies are born with remains in place for the first 20 months of life, and this ability to use his arches and foot muscles will give him the power and control to walk in balance. If shoes are put on babies’ and toddlers’ feet this foot coordination can become inhibited or lost altogether. Whenever possible, let your toddler walk barefoot. If the floor is cold, find flexible socks/slippers that have some sticky tread on the bottom. Whenever possible, let your baby work his feet in sand, soil and against contoured surfaces when crawling to build up his foot action for walking.

Don’t inhibit natural foot reflexes with shoes

Another thing to mention here is that the synchronization of arm and leg movement in crawling is also instrumental in proper gait development, so it is important not to by-pass this stage by putting babies in any type of ‘baby walker’. These contraptions may also encourage infants to feel the ground from a slumped, semi-seated position, which completely interferes with their natural ability to find their balance by aligning their body weight perfectly over the heel bone. (Note from Born - this is why we don't sell walkers or seats that sit a child upright when they are not ready).

Toddlers naturally align their weight over their heel bone.

If an infant is fortunate enough to be carried well and has good furniture, he is likely to do what comes naturally and no teaching will be necessary. He may even choose to stack well perched on the edge of a bad chair, rather than slouch. Children who have been less fortunate as babies will more often need help, but do avoid the clichéd calls to "sit up straight". Though well intentioned, this instruction can in fact lead to further problems because it can’t actually achieve a healthy postural response. If a child (or adult), is tucked in the pelvis (sitting on the tail bone and sacrum rather than having these behind them) they will be unable to sit upright in a relaxed way. They will need to arch their spines, introducing tension and compression in the lower back. Instead, use child-friendly and fun cues such as "have a ducky bottom, not a tucky bottom", or "imagine you have a fine tail. You want it be out behind you, you don't want to sit on it.”

Providing a posture-friendly environment as your child grows can help her to retain her natural posture into her toddler and school-age years. Notice her positions. When reading books or playing, let your child sit on the floor. If you catch her slumping and tucking her pelvis, gently re-position her body. Offer a cushion and encourage her to sit on the edge of it to help keep her pelvis anteverted (tipped forward). An infant who sits on her tail with her spine rounded is likely to replicate that shape in standing and bending. This dysfunctional pattern reduces the range of motion in the hip joint, overstretches the ligaments and muscles in the back, and compresses the chest, abdomen and back of the neck and spinal discs.

Sitting rounded trains the back to curve when bending too.

Bending with a straight spine is a much healthier option for the discs and ligaments.

Finally, a word about parent power – our children will benefit from well informed consumer choices, but, like our ancestors and the traditional peoples of today, they also acquire good habits by example. If we are constantly slouching on our sofas, sitting hunched over our laptops, or straining to ‘sit up straight’, the chances are they will soon do the same. By improving our own posture we not only reap the benefits of an active, pain-free life - we create the positive role model for our children that grants them their birthright. Let’s empower them to do the right thing in as many ways as we can.

Clare Chapman is a Yoga teacher in Bristol and teaches the Gokhale Method to groups and individuals, and offers free workshops to companies and organizations.