From the moment her son came into the world, mother of three Michelle Reyes noticed he was different.
Reyes, who is from Buena Park, Calif., remembers her third pregnancy as the hardest.
“My pregnancy with Tommy was really hard on my body,” she told me newsweek. “I asked for a chair at work because it was difficult for me to stand for long periods of time.”
However, during that time, no scans or doctors found anything that warranted their concern.
“All my test results look good,” Reyes said. “As far as I know, I’m going to have a healthy baby boy.”
However, once Reyes gave birth to her son, Tommy, she began to worry.
“The first thing I noticed was his feet. They were all turned in badly,” she said. “The nurses reassured me and said he was probably just getting comfortable in the womb so there was nothing to worry about.”
A few days later, while Reyes was still recovering in the hospital, Reyes was visited by a specialist who wanted to take an X-ray of Tommy’s foot.
“That’s when we were first told that Tommy was born with severe bilateral clubfoot,” Reyes said.
This is a birth defect that causes the feet to turn inward and downward. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), about one in 1,000 babies born in the United States has the condition, and about half of those cases involve both feet.
Hearing these two words, Reyes’ entire system was shocked.
“It was definitely a big deal because we thought everything was fine throughout the pregnancy,” Reyes said.
One of the weirdest parts of what happened is that just a few weeks ago, Reyes watched a random video on social media about babies with clubfoot.
“I had never heard of clubfoot before, so I just glanced at it and didn’t really think about it,” she said.
Now, that’s becoming a reality for her and her family. Reyes remembers her first thought was: “What did I do wrong?”
“I started blaming myself,” she said. “I was wondering if this was because I wasn’t active enough during my pregnancy, or if there was something I could have done differently.”
However, her doctor explained it wasn’t anything she did. Sometimes, babies are born with clubfoot. There is rarely a specific reason.
While Reyes was still processing what happened, her doctor scheduled an appointment for Tommy to see a specialist.
When Tommy was only 6 days old, his legs were in casts.
“The cast went from his thigh to his toes,” Reyes said. “We have appointments every two weeks and at each appointment they remove the cast and put a new one on, gradually straightening his foot.”
After five casts, Tommy underwent a tenotomy, a minor surgery that releases the Achilles tendon at the back of the ankle to improve the foot’s position and range of motion. Then he was installed with the final cast.
After the final cast was removed, Tommy was given a pair of special boots with metal bars connecting them, which he had to wear 23 hours a day for the first six months of his life.
“After that, his work hours were reduced to 14 hours a day, and we usually worked through the night while he slept and during his naps,” Reyes said.
The plan is to gradually reduce the amount of time he spends in the boot depending on how his foot progresses.
The American Academy of Pediatrics reports that the Ponseti method has an initial correction rate of 90% to 100%. A clinical study, published in Journal of Pediatric Orthopedicsreports that when a complete treatment and support regimen is followed, the success rate is approximately 93%. The study followed 137 people with idiopathic clubfoot for at least two years.
“The whole process has been absolutely amazing. I’ve seen so much improvement in his feet since he was born,” Reyes said. “He’s still able to do everything a baby his age should be able to do. He’s crawling normally, he’s starting to learn how to walk, he’s swimming, and he can do pretty much anything any other baby can do.”
After a challenging start in life, Reyes hopes Tommy can have a bright future where his congenital clubfoot will no longer hold him back.
“I wanted him to know his story and remember what he went through as a baby. He was so brave with all the casts and surgeries and everything else he went through at such a young age,” she said.
Reyes hopes her family’s story can bring hope to others who may be going through similar experiences.
“I want other parents to know that it’s okay to be overwhelmed at first, but there is hope that their children can still grow up and do all the things they imagined for them,” she said.
Please contact Newsweek editors for this story: Marc Vargas and James Debens
refer to
Abdelugad A., Lehman WB, van Bosse HJP, Scher DM, Sala DA “Treatment of idiopathic clubfoot using the Ponseti method: minimum 2-year follow-up.” Journal of Pediatric Orthopedics B. 2007;16(2):98–105. DOI: 10.1097/BPB.0b013e32801048bb.