Hypotonia

Here is the same infant held in ventral suspension. Normally newborns do have a convex curvature of the spine in this position, but not to this degree. Here the head drops much lower than one would expect, and the examiner has the sense that the infant could easily slip out of her hand without extra support. In this case, the hypotonia was caused by trisomy 21.

photo by Janelle Aby, MD