[Benign congenital hypotonia].

This study was conducted in order to elucidate the rarely mentioned diagnosis of benign congenital hypotonia (BCH), introduced by Walton in 1956. A clinical follow-up examination was made of 10 patients who 6-18 months earlier were diagnosed as having BCH. In two cases the initial diagnosis proved to be incorrect since a specific origin was found for the hypotonia (Dubowitz myopathy and coeliac disease). In the remaining eight cases the muscular tones was either completely normalized (two children) or considerably improved. It is conducted that BCH is a clinical diagnosis with a good prognosis. If a hypotonic child meets the criteria of BCH as described by Shuper in 1981, a safe strategy would be to refer for physiotherapy and follow the child to make sure that the hypotonia decreases as expected. If it has not disappeared at age three to four years, further investigations should be made. Finally, it should be emphasized that even though the hypotonia always decreases, it will not always disappear completely.