What to do if you have hip developmental delay?

Have you ever noticed that your baby’s legs are different lengths on two different days? When changing your baby's clothes, if you observe carefully and find that one of his legs is longer than the other or that his hips develop differently, you should pay attention, as your baby may have developmental delay of the hip joint. If this happens, you should go to the hospital for diagnosis and treatment, and it must be treated early, otherwise it will endanger the baby's normal walking in the future. So, what should we do about hip developmental delay?

1 Reason

Hip Dysplasia The hip joint is a "ball and socket" joint, and a variety of factors can affect the development of the baby's hip joint. The reasons for babies' snapping hips include: sometimes the spherical femoral head is not well embedded in the socket-shaped acetabulum and becomes dislocated; sometimes although the femoral head is in the acetabulum, it is easy to slip in and out; or because the acetabulum is too shallow, the hip joint is easy to dislocate.

Girls are more likely to have congenital hip dysplasia than boys. In addition, babies who are born in a breech position, do not have enough room to move in the womb, are born long after the due date, or have other family members with a history of hip dysplasia are more likely to have hip development problems. However, the cause of hip dislocation in many babies is not very clear.

2 Symptoms

Some babies may be born with normal hip tests but not develop normally. The initial performance is as follows:

One leg may appear slightly shorter than the other, and there may be excess folds of skin on one thigh or buttocks. When changing your baby's diaper, you may notice that one hip joint doesn't extend as well as the other.

In rare cases, you may not notice hip dysplasia or dislocation until your baby starts walking, when he or she may limp and walk on the toes of the affected side.

3 Treatment

The earlier hip dislocation is treated, the more effective it is, because the baby's hip joint develops fastest within the first year of life. If corrected early, most babies can develop completely normally.

If congenital hip joint development problems are discovered within the baby's first year of age, they can usually be cured by splinting. The splint can keep the baby's hip joint in the correct position and develop normally.

Hip problems can be harder to treat if they're not discovered until after your baby starts walking. Sometimes the hip joint needs to be immobilized in a cast to keep the femoral head firmly fixed in the ball and socket joint.

Babies with congenital hip dislocation and hip dysplasia, regardless of the treatment method used, need to pay attention to timely follow-up over a long period of time to ensure normal development of the hip joint and achieve the best results in hip development treatment.