When this baby was born in Australia, doctors immediately noticed something extraordinary about her right leg: her knee was hyperextended approximately 50 degrees backward, adopting a position that seemed completely unnatural.
Most surprising was that the ultrasounds performed during pregnancy had been normal, and there were no obvious prenatal factors that could have predicted the deformity.
The specialists determined that she had a congenital knee dislocation, an extremely rare condition with an estimated incidence of just 1 in every 100.000 births.
The X-ray showed hyperextension of approximately 53 degrees and an abnormal displacement of the joint. However, the baby did not seem to feel pain when the doctors carefully moved her leg.
And there was good news: the knee could be manually moved into a normal position, although it initially did not stay stable.
The doctors tried to correct it with a harness when she was two days old, but it did not work.
The next day, they applied a cast that managed to keep the joint properly aligned. They then continued changing the cast over several weeks.
At 6 weeks, X-rays showed that the knee was now properly aligned.
But the most impressive result came with time.
When the doctors conducted follow-ups at 12 and 24 months, the girl could move around independently and had no restrictions on her movement. According to her mother, her motor development was comparable to that of her older siblings.
An image that could seem alarming at birth ended up having a completely different outcome: early treatment corrected a deformity that affects approximately one in every 100.000 babies.