Millie Mackintosh reveals 3-month-old daughter Sienna is diagnosed with hip dysplasia – and needs to wear a harness
MILLIE Mackintosh has revealed her three-month-old daughter Sienna has been diagnosed with hip dysplasia – and will need to wear a special harness.
The former Made In Chelsea star spoke of her “shock and sadness” on Instagram today as she told fans about the difficult news.
Millie told how a routine hip scan at six weeks showed one of Sienna’s hip sockets was underdeveloped, but she and husband Hugo were reassured it could correct itself by the time their daughter was 12-weeks-old.
However, that wasn’t the case and Sienna must now wear a harness for six-12 weeks to correct the issue.
Mum-of-one Millie wrote: “It’s been an emotional few days over here…Sienna had a routine hip scan at 6 weeks because she was breech from 28 weeks onwards, it showed one hip socket was under developed but I was reassured it was likely to sort itself out by 12 weeks, but they booked her in for another scan just to make sure.
“Despite being naturally worried initially, I put it to the back of my mind and got on with things. But when we went for our second scan, I was shocked and saddened to learn she has infact got developmental hip dysplasia and the treatment is to wear a special harness all the time for 6-12 weeks.”
The Mayo Clinic defines the condition as “a hip socket that doesn’t fully cover the ball portion of the upper thighbone. This allows the hip joint to become partially or completely dislocated.”
The parents have been told the harness has a 90 per cent success rate of fixing the hip and preventing mobility problems and surgery.
Adapting to the diagnosis has been tough, and Millie explained it has impacted her breast feeding.
She continued: “The hardest part is that I can’t hold her properly to cuddle her and finding a comfortable breast feeding position is really difficult while we adapt to this change in our reality, a reality that we’ve worked so hard on!
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“It feels like we are back at the new born stage, her routine has gone out the window and we are having to learn how to care for her all over again.”
Millie welcomed advice from parents who have been through similar.
She called her daughter “brave” but said it was tough to see her in distress.
“Any advice on how to make her more comfortable would be much appreciated as although she is being very brave she is confused and frustrated that she can’t move her legs and it’s really challenging emotionally as parents to see her so distressed.”
The family recently returned from their first holiday on the Greek island of Santorini.