When I found out 8 years ago that my daughter would be born with bilateral-clubfoot I was unaware of what this deformity was. I remember going home crying and typing away on google but no results would populate. My entire pregnancy I spent it in the dark when it came to clubfeet. When my daughter was born we were referred to an amazing orthopedic who began treatment on our very first visit to him. He was the one who explained to me what Clubfoot was, and the method he would be using to correct it (
The Ponseti Method) he also referred me to a website with more information on this method. I felt so much better being able to understand what my daughter had and knowing what method of correction was being used as I hadn't been able to make a choice on her treatment due to the lack of knowledge on the matter. I think there's nothing scarier than blindly handing over your child to a Doctor and not know what is being done to your child. Once I went home and was able to research through the website the orthopedic provided I was able to understand what clubfeet was and I felt more comfortable and at peace with how the Doctor was correcting her feet. I also found other parents who were using this same treatment or had used it on their now older kids. It was amazing reading all these amazing stories of success!! What a great feeling to be able to slowly comprehend what may have caused this, what could be done to fix it, and what her life might be like due to this deformity. I'm so glad that now parents can type in clubfoot in google and get so many amazing websites with informational material. You can also visit countless mommy blogs that provide you with amazing tips on daily activities with a clubfeet baby you'd never think would be challenging. Below you can find some of the challenges I encountered with my clubfeet princess and how I dealt with them. you will also find informational sites and other mommy blogs to help you along this wonderful journey you're about to embark :) Take a deep breath everything will be alright :)
- the biggest challenge was sleep.. Every week when her cast were changed she would cry just about the entire night. The only thing that help was holding her all night which was exhausting! And then my wonderful mother found this swing that had this curb where here little legs were perfectly propped up and she loved it and slept almost through the entire night :)
When we noticed this helped we made sure whenever we placed her in the crib we rolled up little blankets and propped her legs on it this helped with the weight of the cast
- second challenge was bathing her with the casts on. How did we handle it? We Placed plastic bags over them hehe sounds funny but it was simple and worked for us.. cast didn't get wet, she could moveall she wanted and we were able to give her a good wash.
- third challenge was clothing. Thankfully our little clubfeet baby was a girl so she spent most of her time in dresses.. However when I did put on pants I made sure they were always a size bigger to fit over the casts. Unfortunately her cast were a plain white I hear some orthopedics do cast with designs you get to choose :) . Night gowns were always either a long sleeve onsie cast were hot enough to have to sleep through the hot Miami nights in them. I was gifted a lot of nighties with the footies all I did was cut the little foot part off and hand sew the seams.
You will find that there's a solution out there for all of these things. Below is a great blog of some other things you might encounter as your clubfoot baby grows up as well as some emotional challenges
http://lanamayes.com/top-10-challenges-with-clubfoot/
Here's a link that will explain clubfeet and the method most internationally used to correct it with a great success rate.
https://www.uichildrens.org/to-parents-of-children-born-with-clubfoot//
Here are a few blogs of mommies of clubfeet babies
http://www.faithfeetandlove.com/p/dealling-with-clubfoot.html?m=1
http://apeachtreecitylife.blogspot.com/p/our-harper-was-born-with-unilateral.html?m=1
