I was born with the condition referred to as congenital dislocation of the hip. I was in a spreading device for three months after the diagnose. Now I am 27, both my hips sometimes hurt and it sometimes feels like they are not in their socket correctly. It’s only one hip at the time, happens about once a month. Swinging my leg to and fro or sideways ‘cures’ this. Now I wonder whether this will affect my ability to give birth the normal way, since we are are going to try to have children. I searched the internet but only found things about babies having this and not about adults who were born with it.

Dr. Joshua’s Answer:

This will probably have no effect on your ability to give birth. You may need to take care to avoid extreme movements of your hip joints towards the end of pregnancy and immediately after giving birth, because the ligaments that stabilize your joints will loosen during pregnancy as part of the normal preparation of the female body to allow for the child to pass through the pelvis - this affects not only the ligaments of the pelvis but other joints as well. It takes a while for the ligaments to tighten up again after giving birth. If your condition has not affected your pelvic structures, you should have no problems in giving birth. Ask your ob/gyn for more information, you may or may not need to be assessed for pelvic adequacy (measurements of the dimensions of your pelvis).

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