Lily’s Left Foot.

First of all, you should know that Lily hasn’t seen a pediatrician since she was about three-days-old. The woman we took her to handled her roughly, told me that you cannot allow a baby to breast feed more often than every two hours or your breast would never “fill up” with milk and you’d end up having to supplement with formula, and generally pissed me off. She helped deepen my distrust of western medicine.

We’ve treated Lil's few instances of illness with Chinese medicine or good old fashioned loving. We once resorted to prescription drugs when she had a really nasty eye infection and half her sweet little head swelled up. She goes with us to the chiropractor once or twice a week and gets gentle adjustments. She’s always been in great health and since we don’t exactly believe in the power and glory of vaccines, we haven’t missed an MD one little bit.

To get back to her left foot: we noticed when she was only a few months old that her left foot is constantly turned in. Dr. Joe (our chiropractor) checked her out and determined that her bones are where they should be and we all concluded that when she started walking, it would probably even out as the muscle strengthened. It hasn’t and despite the fact that it makes her walk in such a manner that is so freaking cute you just want to eat her up, I’ve started to worry a bit recently. Visions of my spirited toddler in a leg brace and entering the whole medical system make me quake with fear.

While talking to my MIL this morning we were chatting about how much Lily has her dad’s tall/thin body type, his finer hair, etc and she pointed out that Lil gets her left foot from her. Whaaaa? Yeah, turns out she had one foot that turned in all the time and after she started riding bikes, swimming, running, etc it corrected itself.

So I guess the next question is, do I assume that this will be true for my daughter or do I enter her into the world of Western medicine: get her x-rayed, manipulated, braced, drugged, etc? (and what is with all the "etc" here?) Obviously I have no concept of middle ground. Do you see how little trust I have in MD’s? It’s not that I believe they are bad people, hell no! I just don’t have a lot of faith in their methods and feel they are way to invasive. I’d rather leave well enough alone… her left foot doesn’t cause her any pain and it certainly isn’t hurting anyone else. But does that make me a bad mom? Does a “wait and see” philosophy imply an “I don’t care” attitude? And hey, is it wrong for me to think her little defect is adorable? Am I going to hell for just calling it a “defect”? Lily, if you’re reading this later (and I do hope you will one day), don’t read anything into that word that isn’t there. I love you, you big nut. And if you look back on some of the videos of you walking around, you’re gonna have to agree with me about how cute your gait really is!

What does the internet think?