Rare diseases · Sign or symptom
Poor head control
HP:0002421
What it means
Difficulty to maintain correct position of the head while standing or sitting. Infant head lag is observed when the head seems to flop around or lags posteriorly behind the trunk. Several articles have maintained that head lag should be absent by age 3 to 4 months.
Rare diseases that can present with this54
Very common80–99%
7Common30–79%
24- 20p13microdeletion syndrome
- Aromatic L-amino acid decarboxylase deficiency
- CDKL5-deficiency disorder
- Classic multiminicore myopathy
- COG8-CDG
- Combined oxidative phosphorylation defect type 13
- Combined oxidative phosphorylation defect type 39
- Congenital fiber-type disproportion myopathy
- Congenital muscular dystrophy-respiratory failure-skin abnormalities-joint hyperlaxity syndrome
- Congenital muscular dystrophy with intellectual disability and severe epilepsy
- Early infantile developmental and epileptic encephalopathy
- Early-onset epileptic encephalopathy and intellectual disability due to GRIN2A mutation
- Lissencephaly due to LIS1 mutation
- Macrocephaly-intellectual disability-left ventricular non compaction syndrome
- Muscle-eye-brain disease with bilateral multicystic leucodystrophy
- Pelizaeus-Merzbacher disease, classic form
- Pelizaeus-Merzbacher disease, connatal form
- Pontocerebellar hypoplasia type 10
- RARS-related autosomal recessive hypomyelinating leukodystrophy
- Rigid spine syndrome
- S-adenosylhomocysteine hydrolase deficiency
- SLC39A8-CDG
- Synaptic congenital myasthenic syndrome
- X-linked intellectual disability, Schimke type
Sometimes5–29%
21- 11q22.2q22.3microdeletion syndrome
- 6-pyruvoyl-tetrahydropterin synthase deficiency
- Alacrimia-choreoathetosis-liver dysfunction syndrome
- ALG13-CDG
- Allan-Herndon-Dudley syndrome
- Autosomal recessive spastic paraplegia type 77
- Cap myopathy
- Congenital myasthenic syndrome
and 13 more in this range
The range is how often this sign appears among people diagnosed with each disease — it is not a probability of having any of them. Many of these signs also occur in common, non-rare conditions. A sign on this page is a conversation to have with a clinician, not a conclusion.
Part of the broader category
Also called: Delay in head control · Delay in head righting · Infant head lag
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Start free with EleplanThis page uses the Human Phenotype Ontology (2026-06-23) — Human Phenotype Ontology Consortium, hpo.jax.org. Disease associations from Orphanet (INSERM), CC BY 4.0. Content is educational and is not medical advice.