Hip Dysplasia

[impy2]

Hi, my dd was diagnosed with hip dysplasia at 6 wks old and wore a pavlik harness for 12 wks which appeared to have worked. Unfortunately at her follow up xray it showed the joint had come out of the socket slightly and although not a full dislocation they want to investigate further by injecting dye into her hip so they can see ligaments/cartilage. I am aware that she may have to wear a spica cast and wondered if anyone had been through the same or similar. My dd is 9 months old now and enjoying moving around, obviously in a spica she will lose this mobility but hopefully not her personality ???

Hi impy2, my DD was diagnosed with a clicky hip at 6 weeks old. She then went on to have a failed closed reduction at 13 weeks followed by a full open reduction and spica cast at 12 months old.

It is my experience that each consultant tends to have their own approach to this depending on where you live. For us, we had to wait until DD was 12 months old for a full open procedure but I know in other parts of the country they do it at 9 months.

My DD had been moving for about a month when she had her op and although the first week or so was really tough she soon adapted and within a few weeks she was managing to crawl in the spica!!

What I took comfort from is that at that age their memory isn't that long so after about a week or so she did not remember life before the spica, however the first week was pretty upsetting and it still brings back floods of emotions thinking about it now.

One of the hardest things was trying to find car seat, pushchairs etc which they will fit into. But when push comes to shove you do manage to get quite creative, Grandad custom made her a little table and she used to sit at the table on a bean bag and play with her toys. She could fit in the high chair so she had her meals at the table in a totseat (fabric portable high chair) and grandma made her some special trousers which had velcro down the sides.

The trousers were really good as this mean't the cast was hidden and I could carry her on my hip without people noticing or staring, so much so that when she was at nursery a concerned parent asked one of the nursery staff what was wrong with that little girl as she was crawling funny

No matter how many gadgets and gizmos you come up with though there is no getting away from the fact that it will be tough and it will be far harder on you than your DD.

My DD is now 3.6 and you would never know she had a problem and she doesn't really remember anything about it either apart from the fact that she knows she had a poorly hip and she has to go and have its picture taken once a year to check it is OK.

I hope this has helped and not scared you with TMI. Let me know how you get on and if you have any more questions then just shout.