Serah

Ponseti team crewmembers Nick (AUS) and Suzanne Veltjens (USA) collaborated with several Malagasy physiotherapists led by Dr Razafindravoanjo. He comments, “We have treated 15 children with perfect results (100% correction). Now we can treat children up to three years old. Maybe in the future there will be no older people with clubfeet in Madagascar because now we have three years in which to treat children with this condition!”

Each week’s therapy began with Serah and the other babies happily playing in water tubs while their mothers soaked off the previous week’s plaster casts and chatted.

Bathtime/cast removal for baby Serah and her clubfoot buddy, Francia.  We have the cutest patients!

Serah grew used to the physio team “playing” with her bent feet – gently stretching and manipulating – focusing one week on one degree and direction of foot flexion and then focusing the next week on a different direction. After each session, Serah’s feet were held in the newly attained position by fresh plaster casts on her wriggling and kicking legs.

Serah had a total of six little casts consecutively on both legs before her tenotomy procedure. This snip of her Achilles tendons allowed her feet to fully pop into the final corrected position. To maintain this ultimate degree of foot flexion, she wore miniature foot braces for three months.

Serah sporting her foot abduction braces.  After three months of wearing them all day, she needs to only wear them at night to keep her feet from relapsing.  (Kinda like wearing a retainer after having braces for the teeth.)  She will need to wear braces until about age 4, then the correction is permanent. 

Over months of therapy, the Ponseti team helped Sandrine understand how vital her commitment to Serah’s ongoing treatment is. In the final stage (the longest of the treatment), Sandrine must ensure Serah wears the supplied foot braces every single night until she is four or five years old.  Only then will Serah’s clubfeet be permanently corrected.

Sandrine says, “I was so sad, but now I am overjoyed. Now we’re going to show Serah off, saying, ‘Here we are! Come and see my baby!’ I am very happy now she has 'real' feet.”

When Serah takes her first steps, she will be just like all her little toddler friends. No one will be able to tell she was born with a disability.

Serah will never remember living with the burden of bilateral clubfeet, but Sandrine will never forget the life-sentence of disability her daughter was saved from.  “My mother cried before. We won’t cry now – we will dance!”

Serah being a little Ponseti method model for the camera and showing off her new feet! :)

Story by Sharon Walls

Edited by Nancy Predaina

Photos by Katie Keegan, Justine Forrest and Ruben Plomp