A Mum’s Story of Closed Hip Reduction

As regular readers know I am totally passionate about raising awareness of hip dysplasia in babies and especially late diagnosis of hip dysplasia that often causes more invasive surgeries and more long term implications. Today we are sharing a mums experience of a closed hip reduction.

Unfortunately, it is not just the UK that fails to diagnose many cases of hip dysplasia but it also happens in may other westernised countries.  Today’s post shares the story of ‘M’ who is the daughter of Krisztina from Houstan and their experience of a closed hip reduction.  I love how optimistic they all our and the tips for how to entertain a child in Spica. 

M was a healthy, full-term baby with a normal vaginal delivery.  All of her early hip exams with our pedi were deemed to be normal.  When she started standing up (9-10 months) we noticed that she seemed to stand on her tip toe with her left foot.  Our pedi said that it is a pretty common habit with babies and that she would likely outgrow it. 

When she started cruising with mobility toys (10-11 months), we did notice that her left leg seemed a little “stiff”—almost like she rotated it from the hip rather than bending at the knee.  We (as first-time parents) chalked it up to her just learning to walk. 

When she finally took unassisted steps (12 months), she seemed to almost limp with her left leg, but it was so minor that we thought it was just her learning to walk.  She definitely was not in any pain, and she got around well.  When it didn’t start to get better though, we started to worry.  More than the limp (which had started to resolve), what had me worried was the fact that she wasn’t getting any better at walking.  Her balance was still pretty bad and she couldn’t take more than 5-6 steps at a time without falling.  She had been walking for over a month at this point so we decided to take her in.

Our pedi examined her and again, her hips seemed normal.  He watched her walk and thought that she might have a slight leg length discrepancy which should heal over time.  Just to be on the safe side though, he referred us to an ortho to rule out any issues with her hips.  We saw an ortho two days later and got the stunning news that her left hip was completely out of socket. 

How in the world did my little girl dance and walk as much as she did with a completely dislocated hip??  It blew my mind. 

I had spent much of the last two days between our pedi and ortho appointments, reading up on DDH so I was at least prepared for what the ortho had to tell us.  I was still devastated though.  The idea of my little girl being placed into a cast when she was just starting to explore her world was crushing.  Still, I knew that we were blessed to have caught it when we did, and that the sooner we started her journey to recovery, the sooner she would be “whole” again.  That was a Friday.  We were scheduled for a closed reduction the following Wednesday. 

The anticipation was the worst.  I was terrified of the thought of her undergoing general anaesthesia.  She is so little!  The moment when they took her away from me and took her back to the OR is one that I will never forget.  I fell apart.

Her closed hip reduction went extremely well.  Her hip went back into the socket with little manipulation and the range of motion before it popped out again was wide.  Our ortho seemed confident that with the closed reduction and 10-12 weeks in a spica cast, our little girl would be back on her feet.  He said he was amazed at how well she had compensated for her hip dislocation.  When she went under anesthesia and her muscles relaxed completely, you could see the hip was out of place.  She has some amazing muscle strength to have walked/danced as well as she did.  We went home later that afternoon and tried to find our “new normal”. 

Our biggest battle in the first 24-48 hours was that she had horrible, painful muscle spasms.  Each time she would almost fall asleep, her entire body would spasm and she would wake back up screaming in pain.  Nobody slept for the first 24 hours.  We finally worked with our med team to get her on a low dose of codeine to keep her pain under control.  She adjusted better and we slowly got her back onto a somewhat manageable sleep routine.

We are now 2 weeks into our journey.  Our follow up x rays this morning looked great and our ortho is still optimistic for a full recovery.  Keeping her occupied/happy has been a challenge to say the least, but we are managing.  We spend lots of time in the stroller and have bought new toys/books to help distract her.  A big secret for us is to get out of the house.  Even if we just go to the mall and walk around, the change of scenery helps to break up the day.

All in all, I am amazed at how well she has adapted.  She is truly resilient and is my little trooper.  I’m thankful that she is young enough to hopefully have no memory of this.  We are gritting our teeth and just taking the next 10 weeks a day at a time.

Sharing is caring!