Hip Update

I realized I haven't explained why Z is in a brace again. At birth, due to her severe breech postion, she developed hip dysplasia, and wore a Pavlik harness for several months. After a week, the hip had tightened up, and at three months, everything looked great.

Above is an x-ray of a messed up hip (not Zivah's). The little balls at the top of the leg bones are the femur heads developing. The one on your right looks fairly normal, the one on the left is way out of socket. Looking at the xray, the doc first checks for symmetry. Then he draws a horizontal line all the way across where the gaps are in the pelvis next to the femur heads. Then he draws a line tracing the angle of the pelvis bone up away from the gap (the hip socket region). He measures this angle. Ideally, the angle should be less than 30 degrees. Then he draws a line down from the edge where the end of that angle of bone is. The femur head should not be developing outside of that vertical line.

At seven months, Zivah hips were very symmetrical, the angles measured 21-22 degrees, and everything looked good. I almost didn't go back to the specialist at 12 months, since she was crawling like a champ and making her way toward walking. Thankfully, our pediatrician warned up that sometimes, the hips loosen back up, and it would be wise to check on them.

Z's hips still looked very symmetrical, but the angle had widened out to 27-28 degrees, and it looked like the femur heads were starting to slide out of that little triangle. The doc said everything was still okay, but since it didn't look quite as good as before, he didn't want to risk leaving it untreated, only to regret it later down the road. Better to be safe than sorry. Three months in the brace for most of the time, then three months only at night...

Thankfully, she isn't as tippy as she I thought she'd be, and she is figuring out how to move around a little. Not so happy, though...