Flat feet: its causes and prevention in children. Prevention of flatfoot and posture disorders in preschool children. Prevention of flat feet in preschool children: Exercise

Parents are very happy about the first steps that their baby does. At the same time, they often forget that from this moment the legs of the child are under severe strain. The feet begin to form actively. From this time, prophylaxis of flat feet in preschool children should be started . It includes many activities, among which a special role is given to exercises. Equally important for the proper development of foot shoes. The latter should be ergonomic and qualitative.

What is a flatfoot

Many people know firsthand about this ailment. Unfortunately, this is a fairly common pathology, which in the advanced stage can lead even to disability. Therefore, doctors do not get tired of repeating that prevention and correction of flat feet in preschool children must be carried out.

So, what is this pathology? Flattening is one of the most frequent ailments of the musculoskeletal system in toddlers. The baby's foot is deformed with this disease. Its arch is flattened. The foot takes a flat shape. As a result, a person stands touching the floor with the entire surface.

It should be noted that the formation of the foot bones continues in a child up to the age of five. Therefore, the diagnosis of "flat feet" can be put to the baby only after this age. In earlier years, the foot is still developing. For example, at the age of two, the flat surface of the sole is considered the norm.

In rare cases, flat feet are diagnosed in infancy. This is a congenital pathology, which is combined with a flat-foot deformity of the foot.

Symptoms of pathology in children

Parents should know that flatfoot prevention in pre-school children is necessary for all babies. Most moms and dads mistakenly believe that if the doctor did not tell them about this pathology, then it does not affect their child. But, unfortunately, the doctor is able to determine the ailment only in a 5-year-old child, when the foot is formed. And in this case serious treatment is required.

But if flatfoot prevention in children of preschool age is constantly carried out, even in crumbs prone to pathology, right feet are formed.

Parents can suspect the development of an ailment on the following grounds:

• Fast fatigue when walking;
• Edema in the area of the feet;
• Aching pain in the legs;
• Enlarged wide foot;
• Rapid wear of the inner sides of the heels and soles;
• Violation of posture;
• clubfoot.

With this symptomatology, it is necessary to show the child to the orthopedist.

Factors provoking the development of the disease

Unfortunately, very often the children have flat feet. Its causes and prevention in children, to a greater extent, depend on the parents. After all, the disease often develops as a result of improperly selected footwear. Often the source of the problem is inactivity.

To protect the crumb from the development of flat feet, you should familiarize yourself with the main factors leading to deformation:

1. Wearing substandard shoes (without the instep, soft, with a completely flat sole).
2. Heredity.
3. Keeping a sedentary lifestyle. Children in our time are more and more addicted to a computer or tablet, instead of participating in various outdoor games.
4. Great burden on the child's legs. They can occur, for example, with obesity.
5. Rickets. The development of flat feet is associated with the fragility of bones, characteristic for this disease.
6. Various injuries of the foot, mostly fractures.
7. Muscle paralysis. Pathology develops after poliomyelitis.

Treatment of the disease

If platypodia is innate, then to combat it take the following:

1. The mild form is cured by the application of gypsum. This allows you to fix the foot in the desired position. Plaster casts are applied for a week. Then change to new ones. Duration of treatment is about 10 weeks. After this, the child undergoes a course of physiotherapy. To him do massages and recommend to wearing orthopedic shoes, made to order in the atelier. In addition, it should be adjusted that rehabilitation prophylaxis of flat feet in preschool children with this condition will take a long time.
2. For the treatment of severe forms, only surgical intervention is used.

Therapy of acquired flat feet lasts quite a long time. Treatment consists of the following activities:

1. Daily exercise in physiotherapy exercises that strengthen the muscles of the legs. During the exercises, a special massage mat is also used , the unevenness of which helps to strengthen the soles of the feet.
2. Wearing orthopedic shoes. It should have a hard high back and a series of fasteners, with which the foot is tightly fixed. They make such shoes only from natural materials. Be sure to make a small heel and insert insoles with insteps. Orthopedic shoes are sold in specialized outlets or are made to order in the direction of orthopedist.
3. Massage. On the appointment of a doctor, they make courses for 10-15 sessions.
4. Physiotherapeutic procedures are prescribed 2 times a year. Most often it is electrophoresis and electromyostimulation.

Gymnastics classes

For proper formation of feet, special exercises must be performed. Gymnastics allows you to adjust even the emerging deformation. It is on it that the prevention of flat feet in preschool children is based. Exercises that allow you to develop a foot, will be offered by an orthopedist.

The gym itself is simple. Parents can easily perform it themselves. And if you diversify it with games, then real enthusiasm will cause such prophylaxis of flat feet in preschool children.

Exercises in the sitting position:

1. Slowly bend and unbend fingers.
2. Stroking. Conduct with the big toe on the lower leg of the other limb. Lead from the bottom up. Then do the same movement with the other foot. Exercise several times.
3. The sole and inner part of the foot of one leg is to be carried along the shin by the other. It is also performed several times.
4. Put the legs on the floor, at right angles. Keeping his heels, raise the toes of the foot.
5. Connect the soles of the feet. Keep in this position for a few minutes.
6. Dilute the heels to the sides. Keep the socks together.
7. Slip the soles of the ball.
8. Take small objects with your toes. Then shift them.

Healing walking:

1. Walking, rolling from heel to toe. Try to tread on the whole foot.
2. When walking, press and pull your toes.
3. Choose uneven surfaces. It is for them to walk. It can be pebbles, grass. Very useful massage mat.

Exercises in the standing position:

1. Roll from heels to socks. Then on the inner and outer parts of the foot.
2. Crouch, without taking off the heels off the floor.
3. Stand alternately on the outer and inner sides of the foot.

In addition, do not forget that babies very quickly get tired of doing gymnastics. Therefore, the above set of exercises for the prevention of flat feet in children must be diversified with elements of games.

Also recommended are walking, jogging, moving activities that make all the leg muscles work.

Home methods

To maintain the normal development of the baby's feet, physical activities and a proper diet are necessary.

How is prophylaxis of flat feet in pre-school children at home? There are many excellent methods.

Let's consider some recommendations of doctors:

1. The baby should move a lot, so it is not recommended to keep it wrapped in diapers all the time.
2. For bathing, it is preferable to use a large bathtub where the child can move, making swimming movements.
3. After taking water procedures, you need to do a light foot massage.
4. Do not be afraid if the child goes barefoot in the summer on the grass and sand. This positively affects the formation of the foot.
5. A well-functioning foot bath with sea salt. Prepare this procedure is very simple. A large bath is poured with water to cover the child's ankles. Dissolve in it sea salt, leaving a little crystals on the bottom. The baby should walk along the bottom of the bath, as in shallow water.

This is an excellent prophylaxis of flat feet in preschool children. An orthopedic consultation will allow you to expand the list of treatment options that can be used at home.

Massage mats

They can be manufactured on their own or purchased in specialized stores. Massage mats are available with a variety of surfaces. Make them from natural materials.

Use such rugs are recommended from the moment when the child begins to take the first steps. This is a fairly effective prevention of flat feet in preschool children. The photo allows you to view how it is performed.

It is enough that the baby is like the surface of a massage mat for 5 minutes a day.

Foot massage

Very effective method of preventing flat feet. It is better if this procedure is performed by a professional masseur.

But if the parents want to conduct the event themselves, then they should familiarize themselves with the methods of conducting:

1. Before starting the procedure, you should warm up your body with gymnastics or take a contrast shower.
2. Start massage from the top. Stretch the hips, then the calves and Achilles tendon.
3. Massage the inner and outer sides of the foot.
4. Go to the processing of the sole.

The duration of the massage is about a quarter of an hour.

Physical education in the pre-school

In educational institutions attach great importance to the prevention of flat feet. In kindergartens and schools, various walking options are practiced in physical education classes.

Prevention of flat feet in pre-school children in pre-school age is most often the nature of the game. Specially designed complex of exercises, accompanied by reading poems. This is like kids and brings to the game elements of the game.

Prevention of flatfoot

Children exercise are attracted only if they are performed in a playful form.

That is why kindergartens most often use gymnastics, according to the type of the following complex:

"Swing"

The child sits on a gym bench, stretching out his legs and leaning his heels on the floor. When the word "up" pulls the toes of the feet on themselves. Then he lowers the word "Down" to the floor.

Accompanied by a quatrain:

Ah, a swing, ah, a swing,

Directly to the sky flew,

Up-down, up-down,

Only hold on tight!

"Cotton"

A child is sitting on a bench. The socks of the legs need to be spread apart. Then connect, performing a kind of clap.

We clapped and clapped our hands,

And now our legs are working!

"Ballet"

The child, sitting, resting his hands on the bench. Legs are stretched out. Pulls his limbs, leaning on his fingers. Then it returns to its original position, pointing the socks on itself.

Feet dance, as in ballet,

Our children dance,

They began to expose their legs,

And stand on your fingers.

"Drummer"

Press your toes and, sitting on a gym bench, beat the rhythm of the rhyme with your fingers:

Misha has a drum,

Rattled like a hurricane.

But when he was given,

Then they silently asked.

But why then is it,

If they can not rattle?

"Spider"

A child steps over a hoop or a stick, with a step. In doing so, he grabs the gymnastic shell with his toes.

Spider crawls along the path,

Quickly he rearranges the legs.

"Merry Hedgehog"

The child is standing with his hands on his waist. He rolls the ball from toe to toe, changing legs.

The hedgehog runs along the path,

And we are massaging the legs!

"Artist"

The child is standing with his hands on his waist. He draws feet on the floor with figures - circles, squares.

There will be children to draw,

Today only legs!

Become the legs perform

The artist's intention!

"Snail"

The child, standing, raises his toes. Folds them and rests on the floor. Begins to move forward.

We will be shown our legs,

How to stomp a snail along the path!

"Pifts"

Stand on your heels by lifting your socks. Then sink to the foot.

Enough of bathing in the crib,

We need to stretch our heels!

"Painter"

The child lies on his back and drives one foot over the other.

Painting the house is about time,

We called the painter!

But not with a brush, a bucket,

The master came to our house!

The element of the game in these exercises makes them simple to perform. The child remembers the rhymes and can then carry out the mood themselves, even outside the physical culture classes.

Classes with special equipment

It should be noted that educators provide for the prevention of flat feet and posture disorders in preschool children. After all, such ailments are very often found in recent times with children. In addition, deformation of the feet leads to a shift in the center of gravity. As a result, often a violation of posture develops.

To perform such a charge you will need special equipment.

Prevention of flatfoot and posture disorders in preschool children implies the use of tracks:

1. Zebra. Make it from a dense fabric with pockets into which various fillers are put. It can be pebbles, peas, small cones.
2. Flower meadow. On a piece of dense fabric sewn different objects - beads, buttons, bones from the account, plastic flowers.
3. A winding path. Take a strip of dense fabric and sew on it, in the form of a snake, a rope with knotted knots.
4. Stripe of obstacles. Foam cut into squares and sew with a cloth. On the squares fix things that can stimulate the feet (pencils, caps from plastic bottles, ropes, buttons). Foam poles are connected to each other.

What parents should remember

To reduce the risk of development of pathology, prevention of violations of posture and flat feet in children should begin with the first steps of the baby.

The following methods help:

1. When the child is just beginning to get up, holding on to the support, it is necessary that he does it in the shoes. The latter should be made of natural materials and tightly fix the foot, due to the hard back. Using the recommended footwear prevents the wrong setting of the feet.
2. Do not allow a child to wear shoes for older children. After all, they stumble, and can change the location of the foot.
3. Hardening helps the body to be always toned. Accordingly, muscular activity is activated. And the good work of such tissues protects from the development of flat feet.
4. Reception of contrasting trays for feet. Take two containers. Pour into one - water at a temperature of 40 degrees, in the other - in 33. The legs alternately lowered into basins with water, for 10 minutes. It should be borne in mind that this procedure can only be carried out when the child is healthy.
5. The use of sea salt in the foot baths, and bathing. If there is a possibility to take the child to the sea, it is necessary to do it. Salt has a tonic effect on muscles and blood vessels. Sea water, due to its density, can replace massage.
6. Walking barefoot allows footsteps to receive a stimulating effect. Walk better on uneven surfaces. In the summer it is grass, pebbles, sand. In winter, to continue prevention, small items such as peas, flat buttons, beans can be scattered on the floor. Invite the crumbs to walk along them.

Such recommendations will protect the baby from serious pathology.