Bilateral idiopathic club foot in baby of a rheumatoid mother: A rare case report and its management

Abstract

Congenital clubfoot has a multifaceted etiology, with several hypotheses offered in its etiopathogenesis. The clubfoot has rarely been reported in babies born to women who have rheumatoid arthritis (RA). We present a rare case of a 31-year-old lady with RA on disease-modifying anti-rheumatoid drugs who delivered a child with bilateral congenital clubfoot. She had previously been using Methotrexate, Hydroxychloroquine, and Sulfasalazine regularly, but Methotrexate was stopped seven months before pregnancy. A full-term female baby was born through the cesarean section with bilateral clubfoot deformity and a modified Pirani score of eight out of 10. The deformity correction was done with the Ponseti serial casting method. The final modified Pirani score was two out of ten. In newborns born to rheumatoid arthritis mothers, the club foot deformity was effectively treated with serial Ponseti corrective casts, as was idiopathic clubfoot in babies born to non-rheumatoid mothers. Our findings validate the Ponseti serial casting method for these kinds of patients.