Neely, formally baby A, was breech upon arrival. I was told when we were in the nicu that due to her presentation that we would need a hip ultrasound to check for congenital hip dysphasia. Apparently this is found in infants who are breech, because they are unable to tuck themselves into head down position, not allowing the hips to flex and the head of the femer fit in snugly with the hip socket. Without the head fitting snugly the socket it does not form the way it needs to be. This creates a shallow socket where the hip can dislocate easily. Below is a picture of this.
We got the sonos done and since I never heard back front the clinic I thought we were in the all clear. Wrong. When I went for the girls 2month appointment I asked our pedi about them. When the results were send over it showed that her right hip was shallow and could potentially cause her hip to dislocate from her joint when she got old enough to walk. We were sent to an orthopedic doctor how looked at the scan and then decided that she needed to wear a brace to correct the problem. Enter pavloc brace. The contraption looked simple enough, but after putting it on her and explaining that we had to leave it on 24hours a day for 3 months I started crying. I had never heard of this or see a baby in this and the thought of my poor child being stuck in this contraption for three months made my heart break.
After about a week we got used to it. However Neely didn't seem to mind it all. You could tell at first that she would get frustrated because she could stretch out her legs, but that only lasted a day. Mom and Dad finally adjusted too! Diaper changing and bathing got much much easier. We learned to bathe her with a wash rag around the brace. Thank goodness it was summer so that we could dress her in onezies, rompers, and dresses they all worked really well over the brace. We also got her some stinking cute leg warmers!
After the first month we went back to make adjustments and we were told that she could have it off one whole hour a day!! We were elated! Neels got to take good baths (which she loved!) and we were able to wash that stinky brace, finally! The bad part about this was, now everyone could see the brace so we got lots of "whats wrong with her?" and "what's that?" You would think that with all the inconsiderate comments that I got throughout my pregnancy that I would be used to this type of questioning, but I was not! Fortunately for the Neel Bear she was none the wiser!
Three weeks later we went back and another sono which revealed that her socket was improving, but not completely formed. We were able to take it off for about 4-6 hours a day.
She loved her brace-free time! She loved rubbing her feet together, since she was unable to in the brace. While out of her brace we worked with her on rolling over, since sister had already accomplished this. After a couple of weeks she caught up to sister and loved rolling around on the floor.
July 10th, at 6 months our Bear had an X ray to see if there was any improvement (could not do sonos anymore due to her age). Dr. Messer came back with great news! NO MORE BRACE!! YAY! Right hip was no longer shallow! Woo hoo!
Update: Had our one year appointment with Dr. Messer last week and repeated XRAY. Everything looked great! No more ortho appointments!
http://www.hipdysplasia.org/developmental-dysplasia-of-the-hip/child-treatment-methods/pavlik-harness/
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