4 week old put in pavlik harness, anyone with previous experience for advice please.

[hubbard86]

yesterday we went for a hip scan for dd and they have found her socket joint is the wrong shape for the ball joint and it's quite a severe abnormality. As she didn't have clicky hips at birth i was told she didn't need a scan and i'm so pleased i pushed for one just in case else they would not have picked this up until she would have been unable to walk or crawl. I am still in shock and the poor mite looks so uncomfortable and we're not allowed to take it off at all. If you had any experience with hip problems how did you deal with it? What happened? What tips would you give to help us over the next few weeks/months? Thanks

My DD1 had DDH and was put in a Pavlik Harness at 8 weeks old. She was breech and was automatically given a scan. It's a horrible shock isn't it?

I have nothing but positives for you. She was in it for longer than any other baby I have heard about (she was 10 months when we started taking her out of it), but it worked and avoided the need for surgery. She is 4.2 now, was signed off last year after x-rays and you would never know she had had a problem.

She will get used to it quickly. You will get used to it quickly. In fact, she will feel "odd" when she is able to take it off.

It might delay her crawling/ walking but it might not. My DD actually walked really soon after it was taken off. She took her first steps just after her first birthday. It also seemed to help her to sit quite early on.

Top tip (if you have a consultant who will let you adjust it yourself - mine seemed very relaxed in comparison to others I have heard about) - ask for a spare harness for the day you have the inevitable poo explosion that covers it!

Happy to answer any more questions if able but DD3 has just woken up and needs feeding! Good luck to you both

thanks robino. Consultant does not want me to touch her harness so i doubt he'll give me a spare. I have not been given any sort of time frame and the doctor does not seem very positive that the harness will work. How long did it take you to deal with it? I'm finding it very hard and i'm getting more and more worried and anxious

Hi my DD2 also was in pavlik- cautious good news here too she was a very severe ddh she had bilateral dislocations and no sockets bilaterally. she was in the pavlik for 3 months and has had 2 uss since which were optimistic. fu with xr next month.

from the research i did the outcomes are usually good especially when like your dd she got into the harness before 6 weeks . hopefully on your repeat uss the hips will be improving.

We were lucky as at alder hey they let you take the harness off for 1/2 per day but i know other hospitals don't and a limited 'wash' is all you can do. re clothes my daughter lived in dresses 6 months too big so they flared over the harness and leg warmers ( think they were called huggalegs ) have some spare if you want you can pm me and i will post them to you.

other than that was amazingly quickly that we and she adapted to it. was a huge shock when they first go in though.

also there is a fantastic charity called steps which has a forum dedicated to ddh/cdh and mums on there are v knowledgeable re all aspects of hips but be warned the posters on there tend to be mums whose children were picked up late or failed the harness ,mums whose children had success with harness tend not to hang around so can be a bit skewed towards surgery and i used to sit there convincing myself that the pavlik wouldn't work because of this. however that said is fab website with lots of information about condition car seats etc, although we got away with the maxi cosi we already had as dd was still small.

good luck and hope everything goes well

sorry also read your last message when dd2 had been in harness for 1 week she had scan which showed hips had re located so was opitimistic. they told us that she will be fully assessed when she had been in for 3 weeks to decied if to continue with harness or move to next step.

My neice also had this problem. After the initial shock, like posters here have said, it really was just a matter of working out how to do things around the harness. I don't think they were allowed to take it off at all but were able to undo one bit at a time for washing. I guess you could mark the harness to ensure you do it up again exactly the same. And yes it fixed the problem.

I also know someone whose son had the same problem and ended up with surgery and a plaster cast. I think it was worse for his parents than for him. He learnt to toddle, in full cast, behind a toddle truck, and was totally unphased by it. I suspect it looks uncomfy but isn't particularly. Small people are very flexible!

Oh and are the nighties you were referring to somewhere 'baby bundlers'? Mothercare do them, among others.

Hi Hubbard, I've only just seen this or I would have replied earlier. My DD was in a pavlik harness from 3-7 months. I know exactly how you are feeling. The first few days are a terrible shock. Rest assured that your LO is so young that it will not bother her at all - she doesn't know any different. And as Robino says DrCosy waves at Robino, even if it doesn't feel like it yet, you will get used to it - so much so that when it comes off your DD will probably feel all strange and floppy.

So ... advice. Well first, be reassured that when it goes on this early the pavlik has an incredibly high success rate. It worked for my DD, even though it went on a lot later as the problem wasn't picked up straight away. I think it delayed her walking a bit (she only started at 23 months) but apart from that you'd never know that she had one.

In terms of coping, yours will be on over summer, so you don't need to worry too much about keeping her warm. Just use oversized babygros (we bought a size up and then used them again when the harness came off!) Or you can get little dresses (again size up one size) and wear them with socks (and an oversized vest underneath. You won't be able to put any trousers or tights on her but as I say in summer that shouldn't be a problem. It's a bit rubbish that the hospital say you can't take it off. Can you ask them if you'd be allowed to go there once a week to have a bath under supervision? That's what our hospital did. And tbh by the last few weeks we had seen it be put on and off so many times we just started doing it ourselves (mark with pen where the straps were so you put it back on right).

As it's summer, you might find the harness rubs a bit so ask the hospital (or buy for yourself) some soft lint pads that you can tuck in to any places where you see it rubbing. We had them on the back of the legs and around the back iirc.

Changing nappies was a bit of a challnge at first, but we soon got used to it - it was just a case of threading the nappy through the straps.

Are you bf? If you are I can highly recommend a product called the "my brest friend". You can lie the baby on their back (ideal for harness) and just turn the head towards you. They are a bit expensive but you can get on ebay.

That's all I can think of at the moment. I know it's so hard when it first goes on but hopefully now it's been on a couple of days you'll be started to get used to it. If there's anything else you want to ask, just post (or PM me).

Take care and let us know how you get on.

Oh just thought, you might want to have a look for advice on some of the other threads that people in your situation have posted - there's been a few of us over the years

My original (and slightly hysterical ) one when my DD first went in: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/childrens_health/778393-Pavlik-harness-for-hip-displacia-need-advice-and-support?msgid=15902750

Another one that Robino and I posted on a while ago: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/childrens_health/976265-Pavlik-Harness-advice-please

If you do a search with "pavlik" in the thread title (if you've not done that already) you'll find others I'm sure.