Cross-leg syndrome in children?

The cause of children's cross-leg syndrome is currently unclear. When this disease occurs, it is often a motor behavior disorder in which the child repeatedly uses his or her hands or other objects to rub his or her external genitalia to cause excitement. Generally, girls are more likely to suffer from this disease than boys. Most children will exhibit this type of behavior during their development, but it usually disappears after children go to school.

1. The symptoms of this disease often present as paroxysmal lower limbs being stretched, crossed, clamped, or rubbing against the legs, and the hands being clenched into fists or grasping objects with force. Usually girls like to sit on hard objects, press their hands on their legs or lower abdomen, or like to put things between their legs; boys often lie on the bed and rub back and forth, or behave similarly to girls.

2. After the onset of the disease, girls' vulva becomes congested, secretions increase, and labia pigmentation becomes darker; boys' penis becomes erect, the urethral opening is slightly congested, and there is mild edema. Children are usually conscious during an attack, but the attack may stop suddenly due to external factors.

3. Children have normal intelligence. When an attack occurs, their cheeks usually turn red, their expressions become tense, their eyes stare, they sweat slightly, and they may even have shortness of breath. Afterwards, the children feel sleepy and want to sleep. If it is stopped forcibly, it will cause dissatisfaction or even opposition from children. Young children may have attacks regardless of location, while older children often have attacks before going to bed or after waking up in the early morning, which may be accompanied by orgasm and sexual fantasies.

The diagnostic criteria are:

1. Normal intelligence and clear mind during attacks.

2. During an attack, both lower limbs are stretched, crossed or clamped, and the hands are clenched into fists or grasped with force.

3. The vulva becomes congested, secretions increase and/or the pigmentation of the labia increases. In boys, the penis becomes erect during an attack.

4. The attack can be stopped by external factors.

5. EEG is normal.

Before diagnosing habitual leg crossing, care must be taken to differentiate it from temporal lobe epilepsy or abortive epilepsy.

Due to the influence of my country's traditional cultural and moral concepts, parents often regard this behavior as immoral. Therefore, when they find that their children exhibit such behavior, it often causes parents to panic and become emotionally anxious. They often treat their children in a rough manner such as beating and scolding. Some parents even threaten their children. In this case, parents should receive psychological counseling and guidance.

① Find the inducement: If such a phenomenon is found, local irritants should be actively found and removed. It is recommended that parents let children wear loose underwear instead of tight underwear; try to wait until the children feel tired before going to bed at night, and wake them up in the morning to shorten the time children stay in bed alone after waking up, and cultivate good sleeping habits of going to bed as soon as possible and getting up as soon as waking up.

② Parent education: Habitual cross-leg rubbing behavior is a normal phenomenon in the growth and development of children. For occasional occurrences, parents should ignore it and correct it by distracting their attention. When you find an infant or toddler crossing his or her legs, you can gently separate his or her legs and divert his or her attention with toys or other means. Never scold him or her loudly, so as to prevent the infant or toddler from misunderstanding that this behavior can attract the parents' attention and thus inappropriately reinforce this behavior.

③ Positive reinforcement method: For older children who frequently rub their external genitalia with their hands, positive reinforcement method can be used, because repeated and frequent attacks will affect physical health and affect children's learning. The positive reinforcement method mainly allows children to understand the harm of such behavior, actively reinforces their good behavior, and increases their self-control ability, but never intimidates children, so as not to increase their emotional anxiety and fear.

According to the research results, this disease is caused by dopamine hyperfunction, so it is advisable to use dopamine blocker haloperidol for treatment. Side effects of the drug include drowsiness, irritability, staring or rolling of the eyes. Others advocate the combined treatment of benzhexol (Antan) and haloperidol. However, the appropriate duration of medication (treatment course) remains to be explored. The above-mentioned drug treatment can quickly control the symptoms and reduce or eliminate the frequency of attacks. However, more than half of the cases relapse after stopping the medication and require long-term medication to maintain.