Congenital club foot the most common limb birth deformity

Up to 130,000 children a year are born with clubfoot worldwide, yet few people have heard about this disabling yet treatable condition.

Clubfoot, also known as talipes, is a disorder of the foot and ankle which causes children to be born with one or both feet turned inwards and upwards. Without treatment the feet become fixed in this position which makes walking either impossible or very painful.

Karen Moss founded STEPS* after her son was born with clubfoot.
“Congenital Clubfoot is the most common limb birth deformity and more frequent than Downs Syndrome or Cleft Palate. At least 1 in 835 babies are born with congenital clubfoot. In some populations it's 3-6 times the average,” she said.

Karen added that for reasons that were not entirely clear yet, black children in Southern and Eastern Africa were 2.5 more at risk of clubfoot.

“An estimated 2000 children are born in South Africa every year with clubfoot, across all race groups. The problem is not so much in the condition as in the lack of treatment. It is possible to reverse clubfoot with non-invasive treatment, but many people don't know this,” said Karen, who was inspired to find alternatives to surgery to help her own son.

The first annual International Clubfoot Awareness week takes place from 3 to 9 June 2008. In part, it celebrates the 94th birthday of Dr Ponseti, an orthopaedic surgeon in Iowa, USA, who pioneered non-invasive treatment for clubfoot. International Clubfoot Awareness week is testament to all those feet that can stand flat on the ground and jump, hop, and run thanks to the work he has been doing since the 1950s.

For more information about The Ponseti Method and the organisations round the world that help to promote this method, visit the links below:

www.steps-charity.org.uk; www.clubfoot.co.za; www.steps.org.za; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponseti; http://www.ponseti.info; www.ponseti.org.uk