Congenital dislocation of the hip

[Pinkjenny]

Does anyone have any experience?

Has it been diagnosed shortly after birth? Both of mine had scans at a couple of weeks old as I had this as a baby and it can be hereditory. ds needed a splint for about 3 months - it was like a plastic nappy - it went over his nappy (and we found putting tights on him under the splint helped prevent rubbing). He wore it all the time and then was re scanned & xrayed at 3 months when everything was found to be fine.
dd was also scanned at a couple of weeks old - she had an issue with her hips but was not splinted. She was rescanned at 3 months and everything was fine.

Yes, it was diagonosed in my dd the day after she was born. She wore a pavlik harness from 2w to 15w and it was 'successfully' treated. However, we are coming up to annual check-up time, which always tips me over the edge and turns me into a loon. She is 2 next month, running, jumping, climbing, all normally. But I have noticed that sometimes when I carry her on my hip, she starts to wriggle, as if it's uncomfortable. Dh and my mum (who looks after her two days a week) haven't noticed anything and say that I am insane .

I am working myself up into an absolute frenzy.

breath in, and breath out..... - wipe away the tears my love.

She will be fine. Please try not to worry (easier said than done). You are not insane, you are just a concerned mother.

E wriggles when carried but thats because she wants to walk and not be carried - cant get into any mischief if you cant reach anything

AM I am completely freaking out. I have phoned Alder Hey and am waiting for them to phone me back. And I thought going on the Steps Charity forum was a good idea. Perhaps not. I asked my mum to see whether she did it, and she said no, very unconvincingly. I am terrified that my baby girl will have to have an operation. Literally.

tsk, tsk dont read sites like that!!
I hope that AH will be able to put your mind at rest. Are you able to ask for a quicker appt? Perhaps if you had a shorter wait then you will have less time to torture yourself.
Obv i am not an expert but both times i have seen A she looks (to me) no different to E.

Pink if she is running and jumping then I am sure she is fine. However the whole point of a check is just that, to check her out. It's normal for you to worry about it. The professionals will listen to your concerns and will check and make sure there is no lasting damage, ask them all your questions,even if you think they are insane they won't mind at all, I'm sure they are quite used to neurotic worried mums.

I am sitting on my hands to restrain myself from starting a 'Does your toddler fidget when you carry them on your hip?' thread.

Shall I start one asking this?

My Love, stop!, stop it now. J certainly fidgets when I carry her on my hip, surely if she was in pain or uncomfortable she'd tell you now. J says owww hurt me, you mummy leg/arm/head etc..... if something is hurting her. L is a little chatter box too is she not? She'd tell you.

She came through a traumatic start like a little trooper, she can do everything all the others do, as AM says don't torture yourself yet. Hope AH get back to you ASAP. xx

Yes that's true, she would say 'Ow'. The appointment isn't even until the bloody 8th of June! It comes in waves, and then I go on that website and see all the trauma that these people are experiencing with their casts and operations and bone grafts, and then I google, read all the studies that contradict each other, and generally dissolve.

Does your toddler insist on shouting NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO at everything? Often followed by throwing themselves on the floor.

PJ, what about a nappy change recently, does she ever seem uncomfortable then? that must be one of the times you/she would know.

I hate to say this and don't shout at me BUT, I read a thread somewhere about a little girl who jiggled in her high chair each time she was put there. It turned out they reckoned it was because she "liked" the feel of it. She quickly grew out of it. Sounds crazy I know but they are at "that" fiddly stage. Could it be something like that?

No, I've never noticed anything at nappy change time. Just this carrying on the hip thing, which was then backed up by someone on the Steps website, who says that's how she knew there was a problem, but it is not backed up by either dh or my mum, who is now periodically picking her up to see if she does it!

Jaysus, Mrs JB. She does like fiddling though. It upsets dh quite a lot.

Sorry!

Perhaps it is uncomfortable for her when you carry her on your hip, perhaps because she is so slight she doesn't have heaps of padding like J, that it is a bit uncomfortable?

Or perhaps your hips are too bony for her .

Er, it's definitely not the second one!

The discomfort seems to be in her bum, as if she has nappy rash, which she doesn't. I am trying to be bright and breezy about it, and my best friend has just agreed to come to the appointment with me, to 'keep it light'. Dh is useless in these situations, he starts shouting at me for being 'pathetic' and is really flippant, which just stresses me even more. He didn't come with me last year either!

PJ, is your dh coming to the July meet at MeadowTowers? I will be chatting very sternly to him if so. I can get a copper I know to have a word in his ear, shake him up a bit if you want?

Do you know I have a cogenital hip problem? All the cool people have them. It did cause me some problems later in life as it meant I had a significantly shorter leg that had to be lengthened. Lots of traction afterwards. I was older than L though.

Jenny, is it really common for chd to deteriorate?

My nephew had CHD, and like your dd was in a Pavlik - I thought that helped the hip socket to actually grow and form enough to hold the bone in place?

Where is the link to the woman whose baby was uncomfortable on her hip? (I am a regular STEPS user )

I sympathise completely over the run-up to check-ups, and will keepmy fingers crossed that all is well. But even if for some readon your dd needed a spica or other treatment, it really isn't as bad as you imagine.

DS has just finished 9 months of bone lengthening - and when he was talking about it last night the thing he thought was worst in the whole time was having to miss a school trip because it co-incided with an operation!

Children are incredibly resilient...people always say that - but it is true!

Deep breaths my sweet. it will be ok

Your mum would notice too.

SOH i never knew that! All ok now i presume?

Blu - tahanks for your post. No, it is incredibly uncommon for it to deteriorate, and many hospitals discharge them as soon as the hip is treated. However, Alder Hey monitor them until they are five.

Pavliks are around 90% effective, and most of the literature states that once corrected, we need expect no further treatment. At her annual check last year, the nurse said she was, 'Normal, but on the verge of normal'. When I queried that, she said, 'As she starts walking (she wasn't walking then), and weight bearing more and more, she will just move more into the normal range'. I had got myself into such a state over that checkup, that I contacted Alder Hey a couple of weeks beforeand they told me to come in that day and have her checked, as they were so sure that everything would be fine.

here is the link for the lady who said her toddler was uncomfortable on her hip. After rigorous testing last night , we have concluded that dd is fine on my hip.

SOH - I can't believe I never knew that!

Ah - the link won't work, but the paragraph is below - this wasn't written to me, btw.

About the reluctance to open her left leg when changing her nappy - this is, looking back, the first indicator that Kai had a problem with his hips - he cannot 'open' his legs like that at all (he has bi-lat ddh) - you know how you carry toddlers, on your hip, one leg infront and one leg behind your back? Well, we could only carry Kai like that for less than a minute before he would express discomfort - we have found now that this was due to his hips.

All more or less fine. I can't do the splits but that's down to the sitting on arse munching gingerbread tendency. I can't use adductor machines in a gym but you know what I conceived dd so I must be able to open my legs satisfactorily in other ways.

Well, that was unnecessarily coarse for a Friday morning wasn't it?

I always turn into a basket case before the appointments. Soon you'll be putting them in your diaries and waiting for it!

Hehe SOH

Pink get a grip

So-o-o-o Pink, that mother was noticing a problem that was being discovered for the first time? Not a problem caused after succesful pavlik tratment?

Honestly - if your dd has been succesfully trated with a Pavlik harness, and the prognosis was that weight bearing would only improve the situation, you really DON'T need to be working yourself into a state and encouraging SOH to give us salacious details of her hip range!!!

afaik, my DN wasn't monitored at all...which perhaps saved my B and SIL all this check-up trauma. But he is in the county cricket team now!

Blu - yes, afaik. I know it's better to be monitored, and that there has never been any suggestion that her hips may require further treatment, but I suppose the fact that monitoring is required, warps my mind into thinking that there may be a problem in the future.

And I'm always interested in SOH's filthy comments. She makes them so infrequently.