Disclaimer
This website is a resource for parents and does not provide medical advice on your child’s condition. We recommend that you direct all queries related to your child’s surgery, safety and medical well-being to your orthopaedic team.

Preparing you child for hospital

The Children’s University Hospital Temple Street have a useful webpage to help you plan a hospital stay.
http://www.cuh.ie/parent_child/index.html

A number of booklets containing advice for parents before during and after their child’s admission to hospital can be sourced from http://www.childreninhospital.ie/publications

Here is a book created by a parent to help prepare her toddler for going into hospital and being fitted with a spica cast.

http://www.babyhips.ie/submitted/My silly daddy.pdf

Operation Day

A good summary of the types of procedures/operations used to treat DDH is provided on www.hip-baby.org and on the STEPS website. IT is a good idea to take a note of your child’s weight on the day of surgery before the cast and directly after the cast is fitted. This means that you can account for the weight of the cast when assessing your child’s growth.

In general, infants are placed in a spica cast after a ‘closed reduction’. This means that the baby is given a light anaesthetic and the leg is moved around until the hip joint is in an appropriate position. The correct position is decided by looking at x-ray. Once in position the plaster is applied like a wet sticky bandage. This sets hard within a few minutes and your infant is brought round from the anaesthetic. ‘Open reduction’ refers to when the surgeon has to make an opening in the skin and muscle to manipulate the joint into place.

Operation days are long and tiring and it can be a bit of a shock seeing your baby in a cast for the first time.

Remember to try and park near the hospital and bring plenty of coins for the parking meter. Bring in some drinks and sandwiches as you may be unable to leave the day-ward.  If you can, ask someone to come around and help you when you get home so that you can concentrate on your baby. Have a supply of newborn baby nappies at home and some baby-vests in a size around 3-6 months larger than your baby’s age. Bring a towel with you in the car in case your baby is unwell on the journey home.  Some babies can vomit after the anaesthetic so you need to bring in extra bottles of formula/food to account for this possibility.

You will be provided with information on how to carry your baby in the cast, positioning and nappy care. Some general tips on caring for a child in plaster can be found on the STEPS website.

Infants undergoing a closed reduction often have their procedure done as a day-case. This means you will be invited into the day-ward early in the morning and be taking your baby home that evening. The hospital will send you the necessary instructions in the post regarding fasting your child and when to come to the ward. Read these carefully and note that certain things need to be taken into consideration such as whether your baby has been recently unwell or had any immunisations in the preceding 6 weeks.