Patient Stories

Grace’s Story

When our baby Grace was born our doctor said that she might have hip dysplasia, it scared us – all new parents want there kids to be healthy and safe…we had never heard of hip dysplasia before.

It was the end of Winter when Grace went in for her first x-ray. The doctor told my husband and I that when we’re born, the ball part of the hip joint is cartilage, and usually by 4 months, the ball has become bone. More and more, babies are developing the ball into bone later, even though all of the medical textbooks say by 4 months, it should be bone.

Our doctor has seen kids as old as 14 months that still have not developed the ball from cartilage to bone. Due to the fact that the ball is still cartilage, we were unable to get a clear picture of the socket and how it is positioned on an x-ray, since cartilage doesn’t show up on x-rays. For that reason, we had to go back in 2 months to have another x-ray, hoping that the ball will be bone and show on the x-ray.

Grace had her second x-ray in the Spring of the same year. There was concern that the socket wasn’t deep enough yet. The way the doctor explained it to my husband and I was that Grace is a B+ and she needs to get to an A. Our doctor decided to use a “Hip Abduction Brace.” We were fitted for this a few weeks after and then returned in 2 months for more x-rays and to see if Grace had to keep wearing it.

Our doctor said she might have to wear it for 3-6 months depending on if it is helping… Grace had to wear it 10-12 hours a day. However our doctor didn’t recommend using it at night.

Over the next 1.5 years, Grace has had 3 more x-rays and they all came back showing that her hips had healed!! We were very lucky that she did not need surgery. The doctors we saw were amazing. Grace crawled at 8 months and was walking by 12 months!! She is turing 3 in 1 month and is a very happy active little girl!!