Video Explanation: Knock Knees & Bow Legs – What Parents Need to Know

Knock knees (genu valgum) and bow legs (genu varum) are among parents' most frequent concerns during a child's first years of life. It's important to know that in most cases these variations are physiological and correct spontaneously. **Normal evolution:** Newborns naturally have bowed legs (curved outward). Around age 2, legs begin to straighten. Between 3 and 5 years, it's normal for knees to become knock-kneed (X-shaped). Definitive adult alignment is reached around 7-8 years. **When it's physiological:** Bow legs are normal until age 2, knock knees are normal from 3 to 7 years. These angles should be symmetrical (both legs equal) and within a certain range. Height doesn't significantly influence this process. **When to worry:** Some signs suggest the deformity might not be physiological: persistence beyond the normal age, progression instead of improvement, asymmetry between the two legs, short stature, or association with pain or limping. **Pathological causes:** Include Blount's disease (pathological tibia vara), rickets (vitamin D deficiency), skeletal dysplasias, and growth cartilage trauma. **Treatment:** Physiological forms don't require treatment. Pathological forms may need braces, vitamin supplementation, or in selected cases, realignment surgery (guided hemiepiphysiodesis or osteotomies).