CafeDoor

Cafe’Door Hip Surgery

That you are here probably means that somebody missed the boat. This book ought not exist. Yet, here we are. This is not easy stuff. For clarity, we will start from basics, back before anything like this was needed. Children with paralytic dysplasia of the hip [PDH] had, at birth, normal hip anatomy. What they are not: They are not like otherwise healthy BIG babies who were compressed near term in the womb by the womb itself. Compression causes flat noses, folded ears, odd head shapes, twisted feet, and the like. Once out of the womb and positioned properly, that squashing stuff went away. But the less able to self correct hip joints, that were also compressed, were not visible. Not noticed. “Congenital” (aka “Developmental”) dysplastic hips [CDH=DDH] often went unsuspected. But hip muscle power did not undo it and often made it worse as the fetal flexed legs extended once free of the womb. A way to reveal these normal looking but compressed hips nearly immediately after birth was developed and widely adopted. It was and is a kind of ultrasound. With timely repositining the legs ( using suspenders) DDH just kind of disappeared. But DDH [CDH] left a sea of literature in its wake of treatments for cases where early intervention opportunity was missed as early detection was not guaranteed. The term 'developmental' suggested that the hip condition developed over time. Our reality is that, while worsening untreated, it was awareness of its presence that was developing over time. With modern ultrasound detection, that DDH went the way of smallpox. So baby hips are all great now?