Neural Exam - Newborn positions - ventral suspension

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This 5-day-old infant is in the alert, quiet state.

The baby is placed in the prone position, suspended in the air by the hand placed under the chest.
The baby’s head position, back and extremities are observed.
The head should stay in the same plane as the back.
The back should show some resistance to gravity and not be simply draped over the hand on the chest.
The extremities should maintain some flexion tone and not dangle in extension.
Ventral suspension is a very good way to assess a baby’s neck and trunk tone.

Movie Source - Paul D. Larsen
Movies from the PediNeuroLogic Exam website are used by permission of Paul D. Larsen, M.D., University of Nebraska Medical Center and Suzanne S. Stensaas, Ph.D., University of Utah School of Medicine. Additional materials were drawn from resources provided by Alejandro Stern, Stern Foundation, Buenos Aires, Argentina; Kathleen Digre, M.D., University of Utah; and Daniel Jacobson, M.D., Marshfield Clinic, Wisconsin. The movies are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommerical-ShareAlike 2.5 License.
Links: Neural Exam Movies \| Movies

Cite this page: Hill, M.A. (2024, April 26) Embryology Neural Exam - Newborn positions - ventral suspension. Retrieved from https://embryology.med.unsw.edu.au/embryology/index.php/Neural_Exam_-_Newborn_positions_-_ventral_suspension