Johns Hopkins pediatric orthopaedic surgeon Aaron Brandt discusses frequently asked questions about hip dysplasia in children, including screening routines and when it should be treated.
Hip dysplasia is best treated as soon as we detect it. So if there's hip dysplasia as an infant, we wanna treat it right away. If it's hip dysplasia, that we detect a little bit later, we wanna treat it as soon as possible. So, the effectiveness of treatments and the amount of treatments we have for hip dysplasia goes down as the patient ages. So late developing is, is really not what's going on. It's usually an undetected hip dysplasia uh that occurs and we just find it later. Our goal is to not miss hip dysplasia. If we are detecting it late, then it restricts the amounts of treatments and the effectiveness of the treatments we have. Typically we have a screening process for hip dysplasia um at birth if you have any of the risk factors including being the first born child, uh breach presentation, any family history among other things, these babies are getting checked immediately after they are born uh based on exam as well as getting an ultrasound. Usually around 4 to 6 weeks after birth when screening for hip dysplasia. The techniques we use are first our examination, we're looking for any signs of instability as well as hip clicks, um any subluxation. Uh And then we use imaging to help us with detection. Ultrasound is used initially because the hips are not developed enough to be detected on x-ray. Once they're old enough, usually around 4 to 6 months of age, they are able to be detected with X ray. So if that's when we are screening, we get x rays, which are the best.
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