The pictures are painful -- children born with twisted legs and tangled feet. Clubfoot is one of the most common birth defects. "Wee, wee, wee, all the way home!" Two-year-old Mary Laws was born with it. Rita Schulz Law, Mary's mother. "She was born with her feet kinda like this." "I could remember seeing on the monitor when they were doing the ultrasound that she had clubfoot."
Her father was also born with clubfeet. For the first time, researchers at Saint Louis Children's Hospital have pinpointed one cause of this condition. Greg Laws, father, "We're able to find a new gene that's never been implicated in human disease before. When you make mutations of this gene, you alter the way the foot forms."
Out of 25-thousand genes in the human body, the discovery of PIT X-1 could possibly eliminate clubfoot. Dr. Christina Gurnett, neurologist, "Figuring out the cause is the first step to bettering treatment options and working on preventative strategies."
Mary's clubfeet were corrected with these casts, slowly straightening her legs. "When we saw it at first, we were like, 'oh my gosh!' the casts went from her toes all the way up to her diaper." "Ok, other side." She now uses a new brace developed by Doctor Matthew Dobbs that allows more movement. "Marshmallows!"
Now Mary is keeping her father on the go. "Just seeing how mary has turned out, from seeing her feet when she was born, just so severely turned in and deformed, to where she is today. She's running, jumping, skipping, playing … it's really a blessing."
Clubfoot occurs twice as often in boys and happens more often in the right foot. About half of clubfoot cases affect both feet, including bones, muscles and ligaments.
