Do normal hips dislocate?

Abstract

There have been a small number of case reports describing late normal-hip dislocations in children who were later diagnosed with developmental dysplasia of the hip. Here, we contest the assumption that normal hips can dislocate. We argue that (as in our case) the ultrasound scans in all published case reports on late dislocated normal hips did not show results that were entirely normal and therefore, so far, there has been no convincing evidence of a dislocation of a normal hip. We also want to highlight the importance of meticulous ultrasound and clinical assessments of high-risk children by an experienced orthopaedic surgeon.