Pectus Excavatum

It's taken me awhile to write this post. We were pretty worried when we first found out about it, and it took some time to come to terms with it.

At his first checkup after leaving the hospital, the nurse practitioner casually mentioned that The Little Mister had pectus, but we didn't need to worry about it right now.

Naturally, we wanted to learn more about it, so we did some research.

Pectus excavatum is a congenital defect of the sternum that results in a concave appearance. There's not much to do till he hits puberty and we see how his sternum grows. At that time, if needed, surgery can be done to correct the concavity (rods inserted in his chest and left for about three years seems to be the most common treatment).  We have a friend whose son also has pectus, and he's done just fine without surgery- he's even an Army Ranger! So we may not need to do anything at all.

In the meantime we just keep an eye on him and make sure he doesn't have problems breathing. That's not a common occurrence, but it is a possibility.

You can see the concavity in these pics, though the appearance had already started improving by the time I took these. As he's grown and put on weight, his chest appears more and more normal, though if you palpate his sternum you can still feel the concavity. When he was first born, it was pretty obvious when he breathed in. It's not nearly as obvious now, unless he's gasping in while crying; then his whole chest seems to cave in with each breath. A bit worrisome, but as soon as he calms down his chest movements go back to normal.

"Congenital defect" is a term that can definitely bring on the maternal guilt. Was there something I could have done differently to avoid this? Why him? Is he going to struggle through life? Will others make his life more difficult because of this?

It's not like it's the first time we've had to deal with health problems that are inherited. Celiac is genetic and The Little Miss got it from me. Somehow that's easier to deal with though. Maybe because it's not as physically evident?

After doing more research we also found out that about 1% of pectus is caused by celiac and it could also be caused by nutritional deficiencies commonly related to celiac (vitamins D & C).

That really brought on the maternal guilt, till I realized there's really nothing I could have done either way. I'd been gluten free for more than 3.5 years at time of his conception (4.5 years now) and have supplemented C & D (as well as others) for a number of years. I was doing my part to be as healthy as possible.

I will admit to being a bit discouraged though. I thought I had the celiac under control and there wouldn't be further bad side effects other than the leaky gut issues that I've been working on the last couple years. So it's a bit disconcerting to find that it apparently can cause problems even when under control. I guess the side effects are more lasting than I thought.

For now, we're not too concerned and have adopted a "watchful waiting" attitude for this situation. Prayers and priesthood blessings have helped us reach that point and not be constantly worrying when there's nothing we can do right now.