Any Mums out there whose baby was born with a club foot

oscarward

Our son was born 25/12/1991 with a club left foot.

Initially it was strapped up to try and stretch it and then at 6 months there was an achilles tendon operation followed by special boots and a stretcher bar. (we still have it!). Then another tendon stretching operation at 2 years.

This didn't work well so at the age of 6 the consultant basically said that's it there nothing further I can do he will always have a limp and we would have to accept this (exact words!). His left foot was turned in and caused him to trip when he tried to run which we were not prepared to accept.

It was at that point we realised the consultant was not very good and asked our GP what to do, who suggested a second opinion.

We went private with a consultant from Birmingham Childrens Hospital who basically opened our eyes to how cr*p the original consultant was! He basically talked us through a series of treatments to ease his condition and suggested he write to original consultant and would take our son on his list if the original consultant wasn't capable of carrying out the procedure. (read between the lines!!)

The original consultant instantly washed his hands of our case so in 1998/9 our son underwent a series of 5 operations at The Royal Othopaedic Hospital in Birmingham where an external fixator was fitted, this straightened and stretched his foot. After this worked and was removed a tendon was moved from one side of his foot to the other to keep his foot straight as he grew up. This was best part of 2 years of pain and anguish!

So now 10 years later at the age of 20 he has an interesting set of scars on his leg/foot, one foot size 10/11 and the other size 12/13.

But he can run and carry on a normal life which is always what we wanted for him, He's in his second year at university.:beer:.

copier_guy

I am a nearly 40 year old man with 2 club feet

my treatment sounded just like kassi's

i have hardly any calf muscles, left foot is smaller than the right by 2/3 sizes

mandler

I am so pleased that you have been thinking about Ponseti treatment, it is now the NHS recommended way to treat talipes/clubfeet. My little boy finished his treatment last week (he is 4) and his feet are perfect. It seems like a long time when you start the treatment, but the time flies by and ponseti boots are just part of life like brushing teeth and bedtime stories!

Please call Steps, a brilliant charity who are full of helpful advice about treatment. You need to make sure that your physio/consultant is approved to practice the Ponseti method.

As your baby's talipes was noticed at 20 weeks (like ours) it is far more likely to be structural rather than positional. I can't believe how far we have come and our little boy can outrun us all!

Good luck, and congratulations x

mildred1978

ruralruth wrote: »

- altho scans are 3D these days arent they?!!
.
X

Not as standard, no.

Perdi

Glad you're feeling better about it all OP.
Do you know, I had no idea that's what talipes was also called! My DD had positional which was picked up after birth. We were referred for physio who saw us once and just sent us away with exercises to do. There were quite a lot of babies there for it, everyone was lovely and it wasn't scary or anything. It was about 3/4 weeks after she was born that we had our appointment. She's perfectly fine now at nearly 8 months, except when I try to put socks or shoes on her then the little monster twists and curls them again :rotfl: