Charles Woodson: Clubfoot to Super Bowl

Being born with a congenital deformity can be devastating. As a parent, you may struggle to understand why, how, and what should be done. It is incomprehensible to allow your child to suffer or struggle and you shouldn’t have to sit by and be helpless. When Charles Woodson was born with clubfoot, his parent probably never conceived that their son born with a foot deformity would someday be a successful football player. Clubfoot is a congenital foot deformity that occurs in about 1 in every 1,000 births and is twice as common in young boys as girls.

Clubfoot can be identified at birth and the foot will have an appearance of turning inward. The medical name for the deformity is Talipes Equinovarus. The exact cause of clubfoot is still widely debated and unknown. No genetic component has been discovered but statistics show that children whose parents or siblings have clubfoot are twice as likely to be born with club foot.

The child does not experience any pain, but if left untreated, the ability of the child to ambulate in the future is very limited. Disability would be inevitable. Over the last 25 years the treatment protocols have been debated. The current standard of treatment involves a series of casting starting shortly after birth. This treatment method is referred to as the Ponsseti technique. The cast is changed by a trained physician weekly and a series of manipulations and stretching are performed. Casting can be as few as 4 weeks but the amount of time taken correct the deformity is dependent on the complexity of the deformity. Most children also need their achillies tendon lengthened, a minor procedure done through a minimal incision. Fallowing correction of the deformity, the child will need to be in a series of braces that help maintain the correction. Less than 20 percent of children treated by casting will need surgery in the future to correct any residual deformity.

Though the child is bound to braces and continued foot care up the age of four, the deformity and treatment has little effect on the child’s development. By the time the patients is gearing up to ambulate, the braces are worn minimally, mostly while the child is asleep. Most children go on to have a normal childhood with few, if any, limitation. Often the only residual defect is the clubfoot having a slightly smaller size than the normal foot. If treatment is delayed, children may be subject to more invasive surgery and longer recovery times but surgical procedures for clubfoot have been well studied and discussed in the literature with good success.

From Clubfoot to athlete, there have been many professions who were born with the congenital deformity who grew up to be successful athletes. Charles Woodson is a Super Bowl Champion. Kristi Yamaguchi is a gold medal figure-skater. From MVP baseball players to star soccer players, people born with clubfeet have proven to overcome their congenital deformities.