Patient Stories
Sophie’s Story
My daughter Sophie was born full-term and very healthy, weighing in at a whopping 9 lbs, 2 oz. She was a normal birth and not breech. The day that we were being discharged from the hospital, the pediatrician told us she heard a click. We had no idea what it meant but after she explained it, we were immediately scared to death. We went to our new baby appointment and her new pediatrician heard this click as well and referred us to a pediatric orthopedic surgeon. We were told to wait a month for an ultrasound.

When we had the test, we were immediately shuffled into an appointment. We saw the Dr. for what seemed like less than 5 minutes and were told that both of Sophie’s hips were dislocated and we would have to put in her a Pavlik Harness for 24 hours and a full two weeks. After our two weeks, we went back to the Dr. and discovered that our harness had “failed” to relocate the hips, so we were moved into an Ilfield Brace. After two weeks, we discovered that Sophie’s hips were in the sockets, but were now finding out that the sockets were way too shallow…so our directive – keep her in the brace.

We remained in the brace for 8 weeks with no change. After a long discussion with our Dr. we made the decision to put Sophie in a Spica Cast. We cried in the Dr. office and talked to a number of people about it…we were scared, sad, mad, all of the emotions that you have when something happens to your child. We had so many reservations, read too many blogs and stressed over this cast being on throughout the summer…one of the hottest we’ve had. But, after going through the initial surgery for casting discovered that Sophie didn’t care at all. Nothing changed her, nothing fazed her…she was Sophie and did her thing. In the course of the cast’s 3 month application, Sophie learned to crawl, met all of her milestones and was still dressed in the cutest little girl clothes (there was just no fun summer swimming and not a lot of time outside for the time she was in the cast).

When all was said and done, Sophie’s hips came out in close to perfect condition. While we are having to wear a brace at night, the Dr. is very happy with the depth of her hip sockets and she is looking great. We are so grateful to our Dr.s and now have absolutely no regrets over the choice to cast her. She is now 18 months and running around like crazy!