If you follow me on Instagram, you know by now that I am huge advocate of crawling. Today, I am going to explain to you why that is. I will also explain why I have a HUGE problem with pediatricians telling moms that it is just OK for a baby to skip crawling. And it makes me crazy when this is said to a mom with a child who has special needs.

Please, know that this post’s goal is to empower moms to make informed decisions when it comes to their kids’ development. If you do not believe that crawling is important and are OK with your child skipping it, it is your right as a mom to feel that way. If you, however, would like to know more about the importance of crawling for your child’s development, keep reading.

Crawling must take place on the child’s hands and knees – army crawling on the belly also has some benefits but that is not the crawling I am referring to in this post. The cross body pattern of movement (meaning the right arm and left leg go forward together) is essential. While the physical impacts are important, it is the impact on the brain that is critical.

Crawling stimulates the area of the brain called the midbrain. The primary role of the midbrain is to act as a sort of relay station for our visual and auditory systems. Think about this: when your baby misses the opportunity to stimulate the visual and auditory systems, there is a lot of learning complications that may arise later. We are not talking about skipping a physical step in our baby’s development. We are risking a breakdown in the visual and auditory systems. This impacts every part of our child’s development.

A vision problem can turn into an inability to read. But that does not equate to a learning disability. Do you know how many kids are diagnosed with a learning disability when the issue is really a vision issue? MANY! Same for hearing. How much would you be able to learn if you could not see or hear well?

So how do we assist the midbrain? Since the brain grows by use – as it has now been proven by neuroscientists – the more you stimulate the midbrain, the more it grows. Crawling is a midbrain stimulator. So as children crawl their brain is making more and more connections.

Crawling requires both sides of the brain to work together, because limbs on both sides of the body have to move synchronously. To make this happen, information must be passed through a pathway that links the two sides or hemispheres of the brain called the corpus callosum. When a lot of information has to be passed through the corpus callosum, new neural connections must be formed and strengthened. This helps improve coordination, learning, and even behavior.

Beyond these important brain connections, crawling has many important benefits:

1. Crawling helps develop joint stability. It develops the muscles and joints near the center of the body — the tummy, back, neck, hips, and shoulders.
2. Crawling strengthens the structures related to breathing, talking and eating. The muscles involved in developing the postural control required to crawl will ultimately assist your baby in developing a variety of motor skills, including breathing (which is essential to speech development), speaking, and eating.
3. Crawling lengthens the finger muscles and the arches of the hand. This directly benefits the ability of the baby to grasp objects – skill needed later for writing.
4. Crawling promotes visual convergence – which is the ability to move both eyes at the same time and in the same direction. Lack of visual convergence causes eyestrain, headaches, or vision problems like blurred or double vision. It also makes it hard to read and focus. Crawling challenges babies’ abilities to accurately move and adjust their eyes. This exercise is a great way to stimulate the visual pathways.
5. Crawling works on prone extension which is one of the two most important movement patterns for sensory integration. Sensory integration is a neurological process and refers to the integration and interpretation of sensory stimulation from the environment by the brain. Believe it or not, many kids who skip crawling go on to have multiple sensory issues later in life.

Crawling is an essential part of physical development. And it is one that is often overlooked. But it is its impact on brain development that should make us all the more concerned. So, if you ever hear a pediatrician downplay the importance of this tremendously important milestone for your child, please advocate for your baby. Do not accept the lazy answer that has been given for decades now: “Oh, but many kids go straight to walking”. Ask the doctor for ways to encourage your baby to crawl. (I highly recommend the crawling track we built for Mara).