A Clubfoot Mom with Maureen HoffA podcast for parents who are on the treatment journey with the clubfoot cuties. This podcast will discuss different aspects of clubfoot treatment from a parents perspective. Each podcast will cover a different aspect…

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This episode discusses different opportunities you will have to advocate for your clubfoot cutie along their treatment journey. I open up about my own journey learning to advocate for my cutie, and talk about how advocating can look different for each person.

Excerpt From This Episode:

“I want to start off by saying that before my cutie was diagnosed with clubfoot, I was in no way a pro, or even remotely good at, advocating in general, even with my older girls. Even after three years of clubfoot treatment, I still consider myself a work in progress when it comes to advocating for my child. It's just outside of my comfort zone.

But after my child was diagnosed with clubfoot, there was just a change in my mindset and that led me to going, okay, I am responsible for this child. I'm responsible for her treatment and I need to equip myself with the best possible information so that I can do the best job that I can. This is my little, little, little baby that's going to be starting treatment. And I'm responsible for that little baby. I need to partner with my doctor to make the right decisions.

And that's partially by me being informed about what the Ponseti method looked like, what I was supposed to expect and the questions that then the doctor answered so that we could decide if that was the right fit. It wasn't a situation where somebody was going to tell me what I needed to know. I already knew a lot. And I think that helped me feel more confident in advocating and asking questions than I had been in the past.

You can find your own feel for advocating for your child through the treatment process and know that it's an ever-evolving situation. One day you might be really proud of yourself because you really did a great job advocating. And the next day you may be like, oh man, I really should have asked more questions before I said that. It's a learning experience just like the whole clubfoot treatment journey is”