The Club Foot Update

For those of you who didn't know, James was born with a club left foot. He has two first cousins with a club foot so we knew what we were seeing soon after James was born. We also knew that a series of casts would be used to straighten his foot. We hoped that he would not need surgery. What we didn't know was that after the foot is straightened, James will have to wear shoes with a bar the distance of his shoulders between them for about three months 24 hours a day! After that he will need to wear the shoes when he is sleeping. This is more of a hassle now and should cause him no problems in the future. The whole process is a pain at the moment and I am not looking forward to the three months of constant wearing of the brace. We must go to Children's Hospital once a week to have the casts changed and his foot manipulated and stretched before a new cast is applied. He has been making good progress and I am posting pictures of his foot. He had his first cast put on at five days old. There are pictures at birth and at two weeks, three weeks and four weeks. If you can see the cast is getting shaped with the foot pointed outward. They do this to over correct the club foot as the foot will want to return to its club position.