The congenital short femur is a malformation characterized by a decrease in the size or absence of the femur, which is the thigh bone and the largest bone in the body.
This change can be discovered on ultrasound in the second or third trimester of pregnancy and may indicate the presence of a disease such as Down syndrome, enanism or achondroplasia, for example, or it may only indicate that the baby has a shortening or absence of the femur, not having other health problems.
- Your doctor may find that your baby has a short congenital femur through an ultrasound done during prenatal care.
- Where the size of the femur is measured.
- The ideal length of the femur during pregnancy should be approximately:.
These measurements are approximate and therefore the baby can grow as expected if it has lower values than shown here and therefore the doctor monitoring the pregnancy should indicate whether the baby has a short femur.
There is often a small change at the end of pregnancy, but you should also consider the size of the parents and the family because if the parents are not too large, their baby should not be too large and this does not indicate any health status. Problems.
And in some cases, the obstetrician doesn’t notice any significant changes during pregnancy, but the pediatrician may find that the baby has a change in the length of the femur or the adjustment of that bone in the hip when performing certain tests during the first 3 days when the baby is in the hospital after birth.
Find out what tests are done in the maternity ward and possible changes your pediatrician may find in: What is congenital hip dysplasia, a condition in which the femur is smaller than it should be or there are changes in hip adjustment
After identifying that the femur is smaller than it should be, the doctor should also look at the type of change in the baby, which may be:
The red part of the image shows the smallest or missing part of the bone and therefore indicates:
Treatment of the congenital short femur takes a long time and aims to improve the quality of life of the baby. When the shortening of the femur reaches up to 2 cm in length in adulthood, the doctor may decide not to perform any specific treatment, but when the shortening is greater than 5 cm, treatments and surgeries are needed, which should be performed throughout life but should be started in childhood.
Your doctor may know the length of the femur your child will have in adulthood using the Paley multiplier method and, depending on the outcome, may indicate the following treatments:
When the shortening of the femur reaches up to 2 cm, the treatment can be compensated in the shoe for the difference between the legs, by using insoles or an elevation of the sole of the shoe to prevent the development of scoliosis and pain in the back or other compensation in the feet, muscles and joints.
When the shortening of the femur is between 2 and 5 cm, surgery can be performed to cut the healthy leg bone to be the same size, undergo femoral or tibial stretching surgery and while waiting for the ideal time of surgery, compensation can be used only with suitable shoes or a leg prosthesis.
When shortening is greater than 20 cm, nearly half the normal size in adulthood, it may be necessary to amputate the leg and use prosthetics or crutches for life, in this case surgery is the most effective treatment and aims to add prosthetics to the bone so that the person continues to walk normally. Surgery should preferably be performed before age 3.
In all cases, physical therapy is always indicated to reduce pain, facilitate development and avoid muscle compensation or prepare for surgery, for example, but each case should be personally analyzed because the physiotherapy treatment will be different for each person because everyone’s needs may not be those of others. .
The congenital short femur develops during pregnancy and can be caused by infections caused by viruses, drug use during pregnancy, radiation exposure or taking certain medications such as tydomide, for example, but the causes may not always be elucidated.