This is the seventh post in a series on primitive reflexes and Blomberg Rhythmic Movement Training. If you’re new here, start with the Field Guide to Primitive Reflexes for the big picture. The previous post covered the Spinal Galant Reflex — the wiggler in the classroom.
Here’s something that will make you look at your feet differently:
Stand up for a moment. Feel your weight on the floor. Notice your toes. In a well-integrated body, your toes are quiet; they’re gently gripping the ground, doing their subtle, constant work of adjusting your balance with every micro-shift of weight. You don’t think about them. You don’t need to. They’re part of a beautifully automatic system that keeps you stable and connected to the earth beneath you.
Now imagine the opposite. Imagine that every time your foot contacted a textured surface, your toes fanned outward and your big toe extended upward, lifting away from the ground rather than gripping into it. Imagine trying to walk, run, balance, or stand still on feet that were reflexively opening instead of anchoring.
That’s what a retained Babinski reflex does. And for many children and adults, it’s been quietly undermining their stability for as long as they can remember.
The Most Famous Reflex You’ve Never Thought About
The Babinski reflex is arguably the single most recognized neurological test in medicine. Named after the French neurologist Joseph Babinski, who first described it in 1896, it has been part of standard neurological examination for over a century. Every medical student learns it. Every neurological exam includes it. It’s even been identified in Renaissance art: Botticelli’s Virgin and Child with an Angel, painted in the mid-fifteenth century, depicts the infant’s foot in the characteristic Babinski pattern centuries before the reflex had a name (StatPearls, 2023).
The test is simple. Stroke firmly along the outer edge of the sole of the foot, from the heel up toward the base of the little toe, then across the ball of the foot toward the big toe. In an infant, the response is distinctive: the big toe extends upward (dorsiflexes) while the other four toes fan outward. This is the Babinski sign — and in a baby under twelve to twenty-four months, it’s perfectly normal (Zafeiriou, 2004; MedlinePlus).
In an older child or adult with a healthy nervous system, the response should be the opposite: the toes curl downward (plantarflex), or nothing happens at all. This is the mature plantar reflex, the Babinski’s integrated replacement. When a neurologist finds a positive Babinski sign in an adult, it’s considered a red flag for damage to the corticospinal tract (the major motor pathway connecting the brain’s cortex to the spinal cord; StatPearls, 2023).
But here’s what conventional neurology doesn’t typically discuss: between the clear-cut infant Babinski and the pathological adult Babinski sign, there’s a vast middle ground. There are children whose Babinski never fully integrated, not because of brain damage or spinal cord injury, but because the developmental process simply didn’t complete. And those children grow into adults whose feet have never fully learned to grip the ground.
What the Babinski Is Doing in Infancy
The Babinski reflex is present at birth because the corticospinal tract (the pathway by which the motor cortex sends voluntary movement commands down to the spinal cord) isn’t yet fully myelinated. Myelin is the insulating sheath that wraps nerve fibers, allowing signals to travel quickly and efficiently. In the newborn, this pathway is immature, which means the brainstem and spinal cord are running the motor show largely on their own, through reflexes (StatPearls, 2023).
The Babinski is one of those reflexes. In the first months of life, it serves several developmental purposes:
Foot and toe mobility. The fanning and extending of the toes activates the muscles and tendons of the foot, building strength, flexibility, and neural connections that will eventually be needed for standing and walking.
Sensory mapping of the foot. Each activation of the Babinski sends sensory information from the sole of the foot to the brainstem and developing cortex, helping the brain build its internal map of the foot — where it is, what it’s touching, how it’s oriented. This proprioceptive mapping is essential for balance and gait. (WholeBodyChiro, 2025)
Preparation for the plantar grasp. The Babinski and the Plantar Grasp reflex are developmental partners; they work the same foot in opposite directions. The Babinski fans the toes out; the Plantar Grasp curls them in. Together, they exercise the full range of foot musculature. As the Babinski integrates, the Plantar Grasp matures into the voluntary toe-gripping that allows us to walk, run, balance, and feel connected to the ground (Move Play Thrive; Cleveland Clinic, 2024).
Supporting crawling. The toe-fanning of the Babinski contributes to the push-off motion during crawling. When the baby is on hands and knees, the toes dig into the surface and provide propulsion. This is one of the mechanisms by which crawling itself helps integrate the Babinski — the reflex participates in the very activity that leads to its own maturation (Lamont, 2022).
Integration: When the Brain Takes Over
The Babinski typically integrates between twelve and twenty-four months of age - not coincidentally, the same period when most children are learning to walk (Zafeiriou, 2004; WholeBodyChiro, 2025).
Integration doesn’t mean the reflex vanishes. It means that the corticospinal tract has matured enough (i.e. myelinated enough) for the motor cortex to send signals down to the spinal cord that inhibit the primitive pattern. The brain takes over from the brainstem. Voluntary, purposeful foot movements replace the reflexive, automatic ones. The toes learn to flex downward and grip, instead of fanning upward and opening.
This is a beautiful example of what integration actually means across all the reflexes in this series: the higher brain centers mature to the point where they can suppress the primitive pattern and replace it with something more refined, more voluntary, more adaptable. The primitive pattern doesn’t disappear — it’s still there, encoded in the spinal cord — but it’s being managed by more sophisticated systems. This is why the Babinski can reappear after a stroke or spinal cord injury: the suppressing pathway has been damaged, and the primitive pattern re-emerges from underneath.
When the Babinski Doesn’t Fully Integrate
A retained Babinski in the reflex integration context is different from the pathological Babinski sign that neurologists look for. We’re not talking about brain damage or spinal cord lesions. We’re talking about a developmental process that didn’t fully complete: the corticospinal tract matured enough to function but not enough to fully suppress the primitive foot pattern. The result is subtler than a textbook-positive Babinski, but its effects on daily life are real.
Instability on the feet. This is the foundational issue. When the toes reflexively fan and extend rather than grip and flex, the foot loses its primary anchoring mechanism. Standing, walking, and running all require the toes to actively grip the ground and make constant micro-adjustments to balance. A retained Babinski undermines this at the most basic level. The person may feel unstable on uneven surfaces, anxious on stairs, uncertain on slopes, or generally “not sure-footed” (Growing in Motion; Nomad Chiropractic, 2026).
Toe walking. When the Babinski keeps the toes in extension and the foot in a slightly inverted position, and when another reflex called the Tendon Guard Reflex (which we’ll cover later in the series) simultaneously shortens the Achilles tendon and calf muscles, the result can be toe walking: the child walks on the balls of the feet rather than heel-to-toe. Toe walking is one of the most commonly recognized signs of retained foot reflexes, and it’s frequently seen in children on the autism spectrum, though it also appears in neurotypical children with incomplete reflex integration. It’s often treated as a structural problem (tight calves, short Achilles) when the underlying driver may be reflexive (Nomad Chiropractic, 2026).
Gait abnormalities. Even when the person isn’t toe walking, a retained Babinski can create subtler gait issues: a slightly wide-based walk for extra stability, feet that turn outward, an awkward or heavy-footed stride, difficulty with running form, or a gait that looks “effortful” rather than fluid. The person may wear out shoes unevenly, have frequent ankle rolls, or avoid walking barefoot because the sensory input from the sole of the foot triggers the reflex and creates discomfort.
Balance and proprioception. The feet are the body’s primary point of contact with the ground, and the sensory information flowing up from the soles of the feet is a major input to the balance system. When the Babinski is retained, that sensory input is partially hijacked by the reflex; the brain gets reflexive motor output mixed in with the proprioceptive data, muddying the signal. Balance suffers. The person may have difficulty standing on one foot, struggle with balance beams or curbs, feel unsteady with eyes closed, or rely excessively on vision to compensate for poor proprioceptive feedback from the feet.
Upper body compensation. Here’s a connection that’s easy to miss. When the feet aren’t providing reliable stability, the rest of the body compensates — often dramatically. The shoulders may tighten to provide a secondary stabilizing mechanism. The neck may stiffen. The arms may be held slightly away from the body for balance, rather than swinging freely. As Bette Lamont describes, when the lower body can’t adequately perform its stabilizing role, the upper body takes over the defensive and stabilizing work, leading to chronic tension in the shoulders, arms, and neck that seems to have no direct cause (Lamont, 2022). You treat the shoulder tension with massage, stretching, chiropractic work, and it keeps coming back, because the underlying instability at the feet is still sending the signal upstream.
Avoidance and timidity. A child (or adult) who doesn’t feel stable on their feet will naturally avoid situations that challenge their balance. Playground equipment, sports, hiking, dancing, climbing; activities that require confident footing become sources of anxiety rather than joy. The person may be labeled “timid,” “cautious,” or “not athletic” when the real issue is that their feet never learned to reliably grip the ground (Growing in Motion).
Sensory sensitivity of the feet. Some people with a retained Babinski experience heightened sensitivity on the soles of the feet; they dislike walking barefoot, hate the feeling of certain textures underfoot, or find foot massage uncomfortable rather than relaxing. These are the folks that are really ticklish in the feet and absolutely hate pedicures! The sensory input that should be neutral is being processed through a still-active reflex, which amplifies the response.
The Babinski and the Plantar Grasp: A Pair That Should Hand Off
It’s worth understanding the Babinski’s relationship to the Plantar Grasp reflex, because they’re developmental partners working the same territory in opposite directions.
The Plantar Grasp is a curling-in reflex: press something against the ball of an infant’s foot, and the toes will curl around it, gripping tightly. It’s the foot equivalent of the palmar grasp reflex in the hands. The Plantar Grasp typically integrates around nine months (earlier than the Babinski), and its integration is associated with the baby being able to stand, since you can’t stand on a foot that’s reflexively gripping the floor (Move Play Thrive).
The Babinski is a fanning-out reflex: stroke the sole, and the toes extend and spread. It integrates later, between twelve and twenty-four months, as the corticospinal tract myelinates.
Together, they exercise the full range of foot musculature. As both integrate, they’re replaced by the mature plantar reflex, the voluntary, adaptive foot movements that let us walk on any surface, adjust our balance instantaneously, and grip with our toes when we need to. When either or both remain active, the foot’s ability to function as a mature, adaptive, grounding organ is compromised.
The Babinski in the Developmental Sequence
In the BRMT Level 1 curriculum, the Babinski sits among the foundational reflexes, the ones that build the body’s relationship with the physical world. Where the TLR orients the body within gravity and the Landau builds the capacity to rise, the Babinski ensures that where the body meets the ground is functioning properly.
There’s a logical elegance to this: you can’t build stable standing on unstable feet. You can’t develop a confident gait on feet that are reflexively opening instead of grounding. And you can’t develop higher motor skills (running, jumping, skipping, climbing) on a foundation that’s unreliable at the most basic contact point.
The Babinski also has a significant relationship with a reflex we’ll explore later in the series — the Tendon Guard Reflex. The TGR is a whole-body bracing pattern whose anatomical chain begins at the big toe and runs up the posterior chain of the body. When the Babinski keeps the big toe in extension, it can serve as a constant trigger for TGR activation; the toe extending upward feeds into a tendon-shortening cascade that runs up the Achilles, through the calves, hamstrings, and back. Integrating the Babinski can sometimes create a cascade of release through this entire chain, as the persistent trigger at the base is finally resolved. We’ll explore this connection in depth when we get to the Tendon Guard post.
What Can Be Done
Like all the reflexes in this series, the Babinski can be integrated at any age. The corticospinal pathway retains the capacity to mature and suppress the primitive pattern when given the right input.
In BRMT, Babinski integration involves gentle stimulation of the toes and the plantar surface of the foot with rhythmic movements and isometric exercises that stimulate the overall motor maturation of the lower body. Some integration programs also include activities like picking up small objects with the toes (activating voluntary toe flexion in opposition to the reflex pattern), walking on different surfaces barefoot, and specific crawling exercises that emphasize the toe-dig push-off that naturally helps integrate the Babinski (Lamont, 2022; WholeBodyChiro, 2025).
For children, barefoot time is one of the simplest and most effective supports. Walking barefoot on varied surfaces (grass, sand, gravel, wood) gives the foot the full range of sensory input it needs to develop mature responses. Shoes, while necessary in many settings, reduce the sensory richness the foot receives and can slow integration. When possible, let the feet be free.
Swimming, climbing, and any activity that requires the toes to grip (climbing trees, hanging from bars, walking on logs) naturally promotes the transition from Babinski pattern to mature plantar function.
Looking Ahead
The Babinski completes the lower body foundation. In the next post, we’ll look at a reflex that bridges the upper and lower halves of the body: the Symmetrical Tonic Neck Reflex (STNR), the crawling reflex that shapes how the head, arms, and legs learn to work in coordinated but independent patterns.
If you’re recognizing these patterns and want to explore whether primitive reflex integration might be relevant for you or your child, consider connecting with a certified BRMT practitioner. You can find more information at blombergrmt.com.
This, BRMT for primitive reflex integration, is one of the pillars of my health coaching practice. I am a certified BRMT practitioner and would love to connect with you and share this work in real time. You can learn more at horaioswellness.com.
Next in the series: The STNR — The Crawling Reflex That Shapes Learning
Learn This Work From the Inside Out
If this knowledge has you wanting to move beyond reading and into practice, I’m teaching BRMT Level 1 this summer. Online (via Zoom), over eight weeks, via Zoom. You’ll learn the foundational reflexes, how to test for them, and the specific rhythmic movements and isometric techniques used to integrate them. Whether you’re a parent, therapist, educator, or someone who simply recognizes these patterns in your own body, this course gives you the tools to work with them directly. No prerequisites. Just curiosity and a willingness to get on the floor.
The Monday evening cohort is full. But more dates have just been added! If you’re new to this work, start with Level 1. If you’ve completed a Level 1 course, you’re eligible for Level 2. All repeat students get half off the full price ($395). Take a look:
References
Blomberg, H. (2015). The Rhythmic Movement Method: A Revolutionary Approach to Improved Health and Well-Being. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform.
Blomberg, H., Dempsey, M., & Smyth, M. (2011). Movements That Heal: Rhythmic Movement Training and Primitive Reflex Integration. (1st ed.). Beyond the Sea Squirt.
Cleveland Clinic. (2024). Babinski reflex (plantar reflex): What it is & what it indicates. Retrieved from https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/articles/babinski-reflex-plantar-reflex
Goddard, S. (2005). Reflexes, Learning and Behavior: A Window into the Child’s Mind. (2nd ed., rev. expanded). Fern Ridge Press.
Goddard, S. (2023). Reflexes, Movement, Learning & Behaviour: Analysing & Unblocking Neuro-Motor Immaturity. Hawthorn Press.
Growing in Motion. (n.d.). Reflex integration: Babinski reflex. Retrieved from https://www.growinginmotion.org/reflex-integration
Lamont, B. (2022). Plantar reflex / Babinski. Neurodevelopmental Movement. Retrieved from https://www.neurodevelopmentalmovement.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Plantar-Reflex_Babinski-22-1.pdf
MedlinePlus. (n.d.). Babinski reflex. U.S. National Library of Medicine. Retrieved from https://medlineplus.gov/ency/article/003294.htm
Move Play Thrive. (n.d.). Feet reflexes — Plantar & Babinski. Brain and Sensory Foundations Course. Retrieved from https://moveplaythrive.com/resources/primitive-and-postural-reflexes/feet-reflexes-plantar-babkinski
Nomad Chiropractic. (2026). Babinski reflex: Gait, balance & nervous system support. Retrieved from https://www.nomadchiropractic.com.au/blog/babinski-reflex
StatPearls. (2023). Babinski reflex. National Center for Biotechnology Information. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK519009/
WholeBodyChiro. (2025). The Babinski reflex: What it is, why it matters, and how to help integrate it. https://wholebodymelbourne.com/blog/the-babinski-reflex-what-it-is-why-it-matters-and-how-to-help-integrate-it/
Zafeiriou, D. I. (2004). Primitive reflexes and postural reactions in the neurodevelopmental examination. Pediatric Neurology, 31(1), 1–8. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pediatrneurol.2004.01.012