U7a examination: What is it and what does my child expect?
Shortly before your child’s third birthday, the U7a will be performed. This additional health check has been financed by all health insurance companies since 1 July 2008 and is intended to close the gap between U7 and U8. Here you can find out more about the process and focus of the U7a.
Your child is about three years old at the time of the U7a examination. TheU7is now about a year ago and theU8takes place shortly before the fourth birthday – a relatively long period in which the U7a has now been introduced as an additional health check. Don’t forget to take the yellow precautionary booklet with you, in which all results are noted.
Index
ToggleWhat is examined during the U7a examination?
Also with the U7a, the doctor pays special attention to themotorandlanguage developmentof your child. If your child may not be able to do some things yet, you don’t need to worry. The “guidelines” for child development are only guidelines.
As part of the U7a, an eye screening is often carried out either by the pediatrician himself or by an ophthalmologist. Otherwise, your child will first be examined from head to toe to make sure that he is healthy:
- Size and weight:Â Your child will be measured and weighed.
- Cardiovascular system:Â The little heart should beat about 70-120 times a minute. Also for conspicuous heart murmurs is searched.
- Skin:Â The doctor carefully looks at the texture and color of the skin and checks for pigmentation disorders or inflammatory skin changes.
- (Sexual) organs:Â The doctor palpates the abdomen and liver and also examines the genital organs.
- Skeletal, muscular and nervous system:Â The head circumference is measured. The paediatrician examines the spine and pelvic area to rule out any malposition. Legs and feet are also examined for undesirable developments and you can gettips for buying children’s shoesfrom him.
The U7a should be performed at theearliest in the 33rd and at the latest by the 38th month of your child’s life. Otherwise, you will be billed as a so-called iGel service (individual health service).
Motor skills
With playful activities, the pediatrician can check whether the gross and fine motor skills are developed according to age. For example, can it bounce on one leg? Or balance on a straight line across the room? Can it assemble simple puzzles and already master complex movements such as screwing and turning?
How advanced is the language development in the U7a examination?
Many children can now build sentences of three to five words. The pronunciation is often still inaccurate at this age, for example “nude” instead of “noodle”. The vocabulary of the U7a is checked by the pediatrician through a standardized language test, he will also take into account non-verbal communication. Especially so-called “late speakers” or children who grow up in a multilingual household show, for example, through gestures that they already understand many things, but cannot yet express them linguistically.
During the U7a examination, the sensory organs are checked
All of your child’s senses will be thoroughly tested. Already in the U7a a a separate eye test can be made. The eye test is either performed by the pediatrician himself, but you can also ask him for a referral to the ophthalmologist. The examination is usually a bit more detailed and especially recommended if your family hasfrequent visual impairments.
The doctor checks whether your child can see equally well with both eyes. Vision is considered fully developed at about ten to twelve years of age. However, the earlier undesirable developments and misalignments are detected, the greater the chance that they can be completely corrected.
Breathing through the mouth
With the U7a, the pediatrician listens to the lungs for abnormal noises and checks whether your child is breathing regularly. It is also important to know whether it breathes largely through the nose or mouth.
If your child gets bad air through the nose, it may be due to swollen pharyngeal tonsils, called polyps. The pharyngeal tonsils react to infections in the nasopharyngeal area, which occur more frequently at this age. But genetic factors also play a role in enlarged pharyngeal tonsils. So if you suffer from polyps yourself, you should pay attention to whether your child opens his mouth while breathing, snores more often at night and wakes up without rest.
When breathing through the nose, the air is moistened and filtered. In this way, germs have a harder time entering the organism. When breathing through the mouth, this falls away and the risk of a bronchial infection, for example, increases. Also, swollen pharyngeal tonsils are often accompanied bymiddle ear infections, as the middle ear is no longer sufficiently ventilated by the swelling and fluid and germs accumulate.
In the case of severe complaints, the problem with the polyps can fortunately be quickly eliminated by medication or a small surgical procedure. If symptoms occur rather rarely, the doctor may also recommend that you simply wait until the polyps decongest on their own.
Dental examination at the U7a examination
Last but not least, the pediatrician will also take a closer look at the milk teeth at the U7a, whether they are free of caries and whether there are no tooth or jaw misalignments. Here you can find out aboutthe right dental carefor toddlers and how to best convince your child to brush their teeth. If you have no further questions for the pediatrician, the next check-up, the U8, is only in a year.