Congenital Amputation: Treatment
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Successful treatment of a child with congenital amputation involves an entire medical team, including a pediatrician, an orthopedist, a psychiatrist or psychologist, a prosthetist (an expert in making prosthetics, or artificial limbs), a social worker, and occupational and physical therapists. The accepted method of treatment is to fit the child early with a functional prosthesis because this leads to normal development and less wasting away (atrophy) of the muscles of the limbs present. However, some parents and physicians believe that the child should be allowed to learn to play and perform tasks without a prosthesis, if possible. When the child is older, he or she can be involved in the decision of whether or not to be fitted for a prosthesis.
Recently, there have been cases in which physicians have detected amniotic band constriction interfering with limb development fairly early in its course. In 1997, doctors at the Florida Institute for Fetal Diagnosis and Therapy reported two cases in which minimally invasive surgery freed constricting amniotic bands and preserved the affected limbs.
— Jeffrey P. Larson, RPT
