Newborn Footprints: More Than a Certificate at Birth – an Examination of Health

If you’ve recently had a baby, or are expecting a baby, you are most likely familiar with the all-too-cute footprint that will be taken of your newborn. As a piece of identification in newborn children, the footprint is often used a document to signify the memorable occasion.

Footprints and foot examinations of your newborn, however, go well beyond that of the foot print on a certificate for you to take home. Examination of the feet in your newborn can provide for a look into complications your newborn may face in association with skin, vascular and even neurological complications.

So, what does your child’s physician do when examining the feet? The foot examination of a newborn will involve both feet. First, the physician will want to examine the skin, looking for any abnormal creases or folds that may indicate a complication with one of the 28 bones found in the infant’s foot.

Next, the physician will move the ankle and foot joints to ensure they are moving properly and then check both feet to ensure they move together without any evidence of impediment. Often, when a child suffers from complications of bone growth and development, the complication if first noticeable during the manipulation of the foot and ankle joints following birth.

Pressing lightly upon the toes of the newborn, your physician can detect, to some extent, any vascular complications that may be present. This is especially important because, as a general rule, the pulse of a newborn can be difficult to detect but, because of the perfect vascular flow in the lower extremity, testing these lower extremities for blood flow, through palpitation, and verifying pulse, is quite simple.

Foot disorders are a leading cause of impaired growth and development in newborn children. Using these three simple techniques of examination, your child’s physician can detect, to some extent, the early warning signs of complications that may impeded your child’s mobility in the first two years of life.

So, when you are expecting your new baby’s arrival, or recently gave birth to an infant, it may be necessary to discuss the foot examination process with your physician. However, in most cases, when the foot examination takes place, the footprints are then documented on certificate, providing you, as the parent, with some degree of assurance that the footprint is a sign that your child’s newborn foot examination has been complete and any complications, if present, are being assessed.