Hip X-Rays for a 1-Year-Old?
Charlie had his one year doctor’s appointment on Friday. I was expecting him to get his weight and height percentages, chickenpox vaccine, measles vaccine and tuberculosis test (under the skin). All of those things happened as expected. Charlie is in the 50th percentile for weight at 21 lbs, 5 ozs. He is in the 90th percentile for height at 31 inches long. And his head is well rounded…always in the 50th percentile. Charlie handled the vaccines pretty well. I sat on the table holding him in my arms. The nurse was quick with the needle. Charlie shed a few tears and then he was done. (I wanted to shed a few tears but I held it together.) At this point, things turned in a less than expected direction. The doctor asked if Charlie was walking yet and I answered, “No…he doesn’t even want to stand up.” She became obviously concerned. (I’m not sure why I wasn’t expecting this reaction. I guess I should have been a little more concerned. But, my less than professional diagnosis of Charlie was that he was just being lazy.) The doctor tried a few games with him which got him to stand up once. But he quickly grew uninterested in her game and refused to play along again. She seemed less concerned once she had seen him stand up once. But she still asked me to take him over to the nearby hospital and have his hips x-rayed.
“Some breech babies develop in an abnormal position which can affect their hips,” she explained. I should have asked more questions. But, I just nodded my head as if I completely understood. I probably looked like this news was something I heard everyday…blah blah. But, inside my heart was doing flip-flops. Is there something wrong with my baby boy???
She showed me some exercises I should start doing with Charlie daily to help him learn how to stand up and strengthen his hips, if they were indeed the culprit. (My husband and I started working on these exercises with Charlie that very evening.) The exercises work like this:
- Kneel in front of him on the floor.
- Reach your hands out to him so he grabs on.
- Hold him firmly by the wrists.
- Encourage him to stand by gently tugging in an upwards direction saying things like, “Stand up, Charlie. You can do it.”
Pretty obvious, huh?
Another option is to sit on the couch holding one of his favorite toys. I’ve tried this one many times. Charlie loses interest almost immediately and crawls away quickly to find some other mischief to get into. (Or he screams at the top of his lungs in the hopes that I’ll give in and hand it over.)
The doctor wrote on the x-ray form “reluctant to stand”. That pretty much sums it up.
I left the doctor’s office with a certain hint of anxiety but very much in control of my emotions. We headed over to the hospital with the form so we could get the x-rays done right away. (It was a walk-in procedure.) The waiting room was full of old people. Not one other infant, toddler or young mother in sight. One old man was actually snoring. Charlie looked at him and laughed. I hadn’t brought the stroller because I thought we were going to a quick, in/out doctor’s visit that day. Unfortunately, this meant I had been holding Charlie for about two hours straight (other than the five minute drive from one doctor’s office to the other doctor’s office). Charlie wasn’t interested in being held anymore so I let him crawl around a little bit in the waiting room. (I know…disgusting. But, sometimes a mom has to give up her germophobic tendencies for the sake of her back muscles and sanity.)
The x-ray procedure wasn’t easy. I had to strip him naked and force him to lie still on top of the x-ray plate. They tried to tape something over his testicles to keep them safe from harm. After having it fall off three times, the technician finally gave up saying, “I guess he won’t be reproducing any time within the next three days.” Seriously??? We had to go through all of that over a concern about his immediate sperm count? With the first x-ray, I had to hold his feet and legs in what is referred to as a “froggy position”. He wasn’t happy. He screamed and wiggled the entire time, tears streaming down his face. I could tell the x-ray plate was digging into the middle of his back. I’m sure it hurt him. The second x-ray required me to hold his legs in a very straight position. Do you have a toddler? Holding him in ANY still position is difficult…much less on top of an x-ray plate.
We will hear back about the results on Monday. I’m hoping my original, less than professional diagnosis was accurate…and he’s just lazy. 
By the way, on Saturday night when I gave him a bath, he reached over to the edge of the tub and pulled himself up to a standing position so quickly I was kind of shocked. (The tub isn’t exactly the safest place to learn to stand. It’s very slippery. But, I digress.) Maybe he doesn’t want to have to go through that x-ray procedure again, either.
-Sophia
Anna responds:
Posted: July 14th, 2008 at 11:10 am →
“Seriously??? We had to go through all of that over a concern about his immediate sperm count?”
Too funny! If that’s the only concern, why bother? Not too many guys out there are concerned about their immediate sperm count anyway. Especially not the ones having their hips X-rayed. Is there some special joy in taping a lead cover to another dude’s testicles?
Sophia responds:
Posted: July 14th, 2008 at 6:25 pm →
It wasn’t a dude…it was a woman x-ray techie
Update: Hip X-Rays for a 1-Year-Old? | 3 Mommies responds:
Posted: July 14th, 2008 at 9:17 pm →
[...] See Hip X-Rays for a 1-Year-Old? [...]