Baby Physical Development and Bowlegs This question comes up for
most families during the first year of life. It's actually a
very common grandparent question because a lot has changed in
the years since they raised children, when many infants were put
in braces—often unnecessarily. Almost all infants have bowed
lower legs (legs that curve inward) due to the cramped quarters
they lived in for the last weeks of gestation. Since the
majority of babies are born headfirst, they spend the last weeks
in your uterus with their legs crossed and folded against their
abdomen—when they aren't kicking you in the ribs, that is! This
results in a bowing of the still very soft fetal leg bones. This
bowing of the legs will straighten out with the pressure of
gravity once the child begins to walk, but it often takes many
months of walking to achieve this. Much less commonly, a baby
will have bowed legs due to a medical problem, such as rickets
(the result of a vitamin D deficiency), an underlying bone
disorder or a rotational