Congenital dislocation of the hip in Western Australia. A comparison of neonatally and postneonatally diagnosed cases.

Abstract

Speculation that neonatally diagnosed congenital dislocation of the hip (CDH) may have a different etiology from cases diagnosed in the postneonatal period has not been examined in Australia because insufficient data have been available. A population-based study of CDH in children up to the age of two years who were born in Western Australia (WA) in 1981, 1982, or 1983 is the subject of this report. Study material comprised cases of CDH from the WA Congenital Malformations Register and denominator data (all births in WA for 1981-1983) from the Health Department of WA. From this material, rates of CDH were calculated for each of the study variables of interest. The rate of CDH was low for bab..