Nursemaids elbow - scary experience!

anmeie

Okay, so maybe I should know about it, but I had never heard of nursemaid's elbow before last week when I apparently caused one in my LO.

So we were at a high school football game and decided to leave at halftime.  I'm putting her in her carseat and went to pull one arm through the carseat strap, at the same time she leaned over the other side of her carseat because she saw a toy she wanted.  All of the sudden she is screaming bloody murder and I am clueless!  I had no idea what happened.  I could tell it was a different type of cry, not just the "I don't want in my carseat" cry, but couldn't figure out why.  So I took her home and unloaded her, screaming the whole time, me trying to figure out what in the world is going on.  She would quit crying if she held really still and was holder her arm at her side.  As soon as I saw her doing that I knew something had to be wrong with her arm, but no clue what.

So I take her to the ER and it is very easy and fast to fix.  I'm crying though because my baby is crying so hard.  Apparently the cops always get called when a baby comes in the ER, but luckily the nurse dismissed him and I heard her say in the hall that it had nothing to do with child abuse and he could go, which I was thankful for that, because I was upset and not wanting to talk to him.  She was feeling fine 5 minutes later as soon as she realized it didn't hurt anymore.  I felt horrible!!!

Anyway the nurse said they see 2 or 3 a week in the ER.  It can happen VERY easily, and is easy to fix, so not to worry.  Some kids just have loose joints and all it takes is if you are holding their hand and they fall down, or you are pulling off their jacket by the arms.

Freaked me out of course, because your child is screaming and you don't know what happened!

freeatlast2014

I've never heard of this but could definitely see how easily it could happen. There have been many times where I was like "ooh, that could have ended badly" when I pulled his arm or moved him a certain way while he went another.

I'm glad it was an easy fix and you didn't have issues with the cops. That would have made things so much worse! 

skibi83

Sorry you had to go through that! How scary! I'm glad everything to turned out alright.

Shannda20

We just went to the hospital for my son today and he had the same thing. Although it happened last night and he just refused to use that arm for anything today. The doctor popped it back in (after an x-ray because the way he hurt it didn't point to nursemaids) and then in a few minutes the nurse came in with a popsicle and I held his good arm and he would actually reach with the good one. Soon he was double fisting it and we went home with my son being his active self again. Crazy how fast and easy it is for them to fix!