A foot defect can affect the posture, translating into a wrong way to walk and invalidating on the back and joints. This is the direct consequence of a missed foot correction operation in child age that unlikely can be resolved in adult age. One example is the flatfoot; indeed, once we have grown up it is difficult to correct without surgery and for this reason is important that the parents take high care over the posture, the feets and the way to walk of their children. Moreover it is essential too that they do not hesitate to go to the pediatrician and, why not?, also to a specialist.

“The flatfoot is the most common pathology in the Western world. It is a condition that during early years of life, that is until 4 years-old, is absolutely physiological – Foot surgeon of the Clinica San Francesco, Michele Montanari, MD, explains –. Growing up, indeed, the children should begin to develop the plantar arch, weighty for the fundamental push to walking. If not, is necessary to operate.”

 

 

When is it better to operate for solving the flatfoot problem?

“It is fundamental to diagnose the flatfoot in child age, since it doesn’t take much to generate improvements. – Montanari, MD, says – Some soles helping to keep a right posture can be used and from the moment the child is operated the procedure is not painful or invasive unlike the adult. For the child this is a day hospital, the operation lasts few minutes and the postoperative provides for just position braces and all lasts about ten days. For the adult, indeed, both the operation and the course are complex and demanding”.

Which are the precautions that the parents can adopt in children’s early years for preventing walking disorders or defects?

It is important that during the motor learning, when children start to move their first steps and until four years of age, they wear shoes as little as possible. It’s better to let them go barefoot or to use anti-slip socks.

If they must wear shoes for going out, it is weighty that, in this first walking phase, the children wear the ones without soles, soft and flexible as much as possible, and preferring the use of transpiring materials and socks to avoid that the feet are damaged by bladders and bacteria. The children don’t have to wear used shoes because it means forcing them to adapt their way of walking to a shoe which has already got other feet track. The main thing to observe, so that the plantar arch develops adequately and other feet diseases can decrease, is that the child goes barefoot as much as possible, even when the weather conditions allow it.