Hi. We are a military family stationed at Offutt AFB in Nebraska. Our daughter was born with Developmental Pevlic Dysplasia. We are seeing a pediatric Orthopedist who put her in a Wheaton-Pavlik harness/brace for the next 3 months ~ we do routine ultrasounds to check the positioning of her hips, the brace is slowly moving her hips into place (like braces do on teeth).
For those who don't know of the condition: the ball/sockets in the hips are not formed correctly and must be corrected at birth otherwise it can cause a lifetime of problems and may result in limping, crutches or wheelchair.
I've had the "why me/her" blues, but thankfully have gotten my act together. A sad part of this condition is that Della can't wear any of the 0-3 month clothes (especially onesies) because of the positioning of her hips make it impossible to put clothes on her (also her shoulders are imoblized), so she she is in 3/6 month clothes for the time being. Also, I can't put her in a snugly or sling.
Also, it's hard when I change her diaper in public and people gasp when they see the harness and I feel obligated to explain her condition and why she has to wear it.
Anywhoo....just curious if anyone has a child with this condition and has experienced the same issues that we are dealing with. TIA!!!
P.S. Here is a picture of Della in her brace/harness:
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Developmental Pelvic Dysplasia
! Welcome to our board! I'm Krista, Mom to 3. My daughter Anika is our special needs baby (well she's almost 4- but still my baby 
). She has not deal with hip dysplasia, but I HAVE dealt with the stares in public since she was born. Anika was born 2 months early and had a complicated delivery. As a result she now has mild Cerebral Palsy(mostly low tone, but has some high toned areas), reflux- has a g-tube, lots of breathing issues (Bronchio pulminary dysplasia, laryngolamacial, trachealmalacia, asthma, etc.), and she has some kind of other problem that's yet to be diagnosed where she has horrible pain in hips, knees, and back- it's probably and arthritis-type thing but we are sitll unsure of exactly what "it" is. As an infant, she had an apnea monitor attached to her 24/7- so wires were hanging out of all of her clothes and i had a box showing her heart rate, and she had an NG tube taped to her face and going up her nose- aside from that she was extremely floppy and very very small for her age. I know the gasp you're talking about- and no you're not obligated to explain anything. I finally just smiled and spoke to them ignoring thier stares. I appreciated it when they were bold enough to ask, and not just gawk at her. I've also gone through the "why me, why hers" and sometimes it comes back and goes away again.
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This condition is usually 100% treatable if caught and corrected at birth (they had Della in her brace by 9 days old). Her Ortho said that once the hips are in place, they should be fine for the rest of her life, with the exception of some mild arthritis that is reported in some cases.....at first it was so scary not knowing much about the conditon.
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Jakob (May 12th 2004- Feb. 24th 2009 Had Joubert Syndrome RIP) 
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