Waverly was born with club foot. Her left foot is more severe than her right foot. That being said, her club foot is still very mild. The process to fix the issue includes casting her legs, wearing special boots, and even surgery to clip the Achilles tendon. At this time, they do not know for sure what causes club foot, though there can be a genetic factor involved. They suspect that Waverly's occurred because she was a big baby and she didn't have enough room during development for her feet to form in the correct positions, instead they were tucked up against her body causing the ligaments and tendons to position her feet incorrectly.
The purpose of the castings is to stretch her achilles tendon to make it easier for the foot to go back to the correct position. The process includes up to 5 different castings to realign the position of the feet and stretch those tendons and ligaments. Then they go to special boots with a bar between them to keep her feet from going back into their original positions. The boots are worn 20 hours a day minimum until the baby is mobile. Then they are worn during naps and bedtime. The boots help maintain the correct positioning needed for her to be able to walk properly on the bottom of her feet instead of the sides or even top of the foot depending on the severity of the club foot.
I didn't record the first casting, but I do have some pictures of her after her first casting.
You can see those here:
See ya soon!
Danielle
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