Mikaere has hypotonia, which means he has low tone, or muscle weakness. Kind of. It’s not that his muscles are weak, and that he just needs practice to build up his strength, but that his brain finds it difficult to send the signal to ‘fire’ his muscles, so they can do what they’re meant to.
This means he finds it difficult to do things we take for granted, like hold up his head, or pull himself forward, or even lift his hands to his face (something even neurotypical newborns do).
One the things we do to help him is set him up in a Lycra compression suit. One benefit is that supports his core. It helps realign his spine and pelvis, giving stability and also provides better proprioceptive feedback, which is knowing where his body is and what it’s doing as he moves himself around.
The suits are custom made, so we went and got him measured up for a one. Spider-Man colours, just for fun.
We know this helps with his core stability. Fingers crossed it’ll help groove in some pathways in his brain and he’ll eventually be more stable without the suit as he is with it.
It’s just gone back to the shop for adjustments, so we’ll wait and see!
