My newborn needs help

The midwife mentioned that Rori might not have had enough room in my uterus to grow and this seemed plausible to me. She hadn't really moved around when I was pregnant, only fidgeted, and she was in the correct position for birth from about 24 weeks. I blamed myself. It was my fault. Of course this wasn't the case, but I believed it at the time.

By the end of the second week, with the aid of physiotherapy and the harness, Rori had made remarkable progress. Her left hip was healed and there was a definite socket on the right. We were told that the harness could probably come off after another three weeks.

However, the next scan showed that progress had slowed, and I was told it would be another three weeks before Rori could be weaned off the harness. Three days later we returned to Jamaica.

For me, weaning Rori off the harness was the hardest part of the whole experience as she screamed blue murder when the harness went back on. She'd had a taste of freedom and didn't want the harness on again; also Jamaica was so much hotter than the UK and the heat made wearing it much worse for her.

For the first week, we took the harness off for one hour every day; the second week, two hours and for the third week, four hours. During the fourth week, Rori was harness-free for eight hours and for the firth and sixth weeks, she only wore the harness at night.

Rori's last scan was on 21st December 2003. It took six weeks for the left socket to become perfect, and 12 weeks for the more severe right socket to form. Her hips are now absolutely fine. Looking at her you would never guess what she's been through. In fact she seems to be an early developer; she crawled at five months and walked at eight - possibly the brace strengthened muscles that normally would not have developed that early.

The experience was very hard for all of us. Although it seemed like the end of the world at the time, I am so thankful that hip dysplasia is a condition that can be fixed. Today I look at my healthy, happy, 11-month-old baby and I just feel grateful.