I am 28 years old and my husband Pavel 32years old, our daughter Eva is our first baby. Nobody in our families has ever had any orthopaedic problems, therefore it was a complete surprise when the 24 weeks the sonography scan showed the talipes equinovarus of the right foot. There was not a big disappointment on my side as the doctor said the defect is minor and it may not even appear when the baby is born.

It did appear in all its ugliness and severeness on the right foot of my baby, and even after that doctors insisted that the defect will disappear after a few classical casts had been applied. This did not happened at all and at the age of 7 month "the hill was as high" as at the day of birth and the foot looked badly deformed.

The doctors nodded and sadly informed us about possible operation called a posterior medical release (PMR) on my 7 month daughter for 3 hrs with full anesthesia, three scars and scared tissues with possible pains for the rest of her life. This was totally unacceptable to us as parents.

For a month I have been searching through the Internet and on the fifth call to some doctor in the Moscow neighborhood I came across Dr Guram Chochiev in Vladimir City who agreed after X-rays were sent to him to accept our daughter for some "Ponseti treatment". I asked if the operation is necessary he said no even the girl was 8 month old by that time. So after the attending his hospital and with only four casts applications the foot looked surprisingly NORMAL not just to us but to our astonished gang of local doctors, who were full of disbelief and curiosity of how it had corrected without surgery.

Since then I am looking for any possibility to bring the method to Russia and Siberia, I am in contact with dozens of mothers of clubfoot kids all over Russia and former Soviet countries. There was contact with Dr Mark Sinclair from Germany who is a Ponseti trainer and he is eager to come but there is a big luck of finance for us to accept him, to rent conference facilities and pay at least for a hotel - the rest he will do himself.

So, on behalf of dozens we plead for your assistance in our affair - help to conduct a seminar for Ponseti treatment in Siberia.

Julia and Eva Iliutuk
Russia, Irkutsk City,
pioneer22@inbox.ru

steps NOTE:

It is so easy to forget about the frustrations of trying to find out about the most appropriate treatment for your child, but 6 years ago in this country it would have been very hard to find many doctors who practiced the Ponseti method. We were lucky, the UK had the resources through dedicated health professions, parents and charities like steps, so training programmes were implemented and now upwards of 70 doctors are practicing the Ponseti method.

If you would like to help other struggling parents and health professions in less resourced countries you can always make a donation to the Jane Bettridge Fellowship Fund http://www.steps-charity.org.uk/links/6-67-jane_bettridge_fellowship.php or go to our Supporter Gifts. http://www.steps-charity.org.uk/links/11-106-supporter_gifts.php You could buy a very special Christmas present for someone.