Question: why are babies born with no knee caps

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  1. Many bones found in older children or adults are actually soft tissue (cartilage) in a baby’s body and this turns into bone as the child gets older.

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  2. Hi @Erin10288: I think I answered this one during out CHAT session today – babies ARE born with kneecaps – the bones is soft cartilage though and ossifies (hardens up) as we age.

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  3. @erin,

    @mia’s right, they do have kneecaps but you wont find them on an Xray until they’re older because its not hard bone yet.

    Many reasons why this may be the case, and the most obvious is that they’re growing quickly, the soft tissue can keep up with the rest of you. Many people complain when they’re growing up that this hurts or that hurts without reason, and sometimes its because different parts of your body is growing at different speeds.

    The other reason, which is more of an advantage that a reason, is something you may have noticed before, babies have problems walking. They crash here and there as they learn to balance. During this time, their knees take the impact of many falls, so a soft tissue landing is much easier to handle than a crunch on a new bone.

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Comments

  1. thanks that really helped i had always stumbled me why they weren’t well now i know thank you 🙂

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