What this site is for

Clubfoot is one of the best-served conditions in pediatric orthopedics and one of the worst-served in adult orthopedics. Clubfoot Forward exists in that gap. This page is about the project; the person writing it has his own page.

Written by Heath, who has lived it: casts from birth, a fusion at sixteen, the US Army, and distance running.

The gap it was built for

A baby born with clubfoot (club foot) today has an excellent chance of a good outcome, and the information available to their parents is genuinely good. Casting, the tenotomy, boots and bar. It is all documented, by hospitals, by charities, by researchers.

Then the child turns sixteen, gets discharged, and the trail goes cold. The research follows people to skeletal maturity and largely stops. Services do the same. Two decades later something starts hurting and there is no obvious door to knock on and very little written down.

Well coveredDiagnosis, casting, bracing, the first few years. Rightly so. It is where outcomes are decided.

Thinly coveredAdolescence into the twenties, where people are quietly discharged.

Barely coveredThirty years on, which is when most adults start looking for answers.

That third column is the reason this site exists. Not because the pediatric information is wrong, it is largely excellent, but because it was never meant to answer the questions that arrive later.

Who it serves

Four readers

New parents → Diagnosed yesterday, or found on a scan. Need orientation fast and in plain language. Parents mid-treatment → Deep in casts or boots and bar, and mostly asking whether what they are seeing is normal. Adults → Treated decades ago, discharged long since, now dealing with pain, stiffness or a changing gait.

There is a fourth, less expected: clinicians. Several have said the useful thing here is not the clinical content but seeing what adult patients actually ask and in what order, which is not something a textbook records.

What it deliberately is not

What it does

Explains mechanisms so you can reason about your own case
Says plainly when something is unknown
Covers the adult end properly
Names the author and the review date on every page
Publishes its funding and its limits
Sends you to a clinician, repeatedly

What it will not do

Diagnose anything, including from a photograph
Tell you what to do about your own foot
Second-guess your clinician’s plan
Recommend a product it sells
Take money from brace or footwear companies
Promise you a particular outcome

The aim is a better ten minutes with a specialist. Not a substitute for one.

Independence, and why it is worth stating

Clubfoot has an unusual amount of commerce attached to it. Braces, boots, bars, orthotics, footwear, private clinics. All real markets, all selling to parents at the most anxious moment of their lives.

A resource funded by any of them cannot be trusted on the questions that matter most, so this one is funded by paid guides, readers who choose to chip in, Amazon affiliate commissions and the mobile app: and by no brace maker, footwear brand, clinic or manufacturer. No brand has ever had a say in a sentence here. The editorial policy sets out the disclosure rules, and the privacy policy covers the affiliate and app arrangements.

The standards every page is held to → Where reader support actually goes → Whether the hips are involved → SSI for a child → Writing from a bilateral foot → Running on two clubfeet →

About the project

What is Clubfoot Forward?

An independent resource covering clubfoot across a whole life and not only infancy, written by an adult who has it. It is not affiliated with any hospital, manufacturer, brace company or charity.

Is it a charity?

No. It is an independent project funded by guides and voluntary reader support, which keeps it free of the commercial pressure that comes with brace, footwear and clinic money.

Does it replace medical care?

No, and it is designed not to. The aim is that you arrive at an appointment able to describe what has changed and ask a sharper question, which is a different job from diagnosing or treating anything.

Who is it written for?

Parents of a newly diagnosed baby, parents partway through treatment, adults living with the long-term result, and to some extent clinicians who want to know what their adult patients are actually asking.

Is the information country-specific?

The mechanics and the condition are universal; the health systems are not. Where something depends on where you live, such as records access or referral routes, the page says so instead of assuming one country.

Why does it focus so much on adults?

Because almost nothing else does. Clubfoot research, services and patient information are organized around babies and children, and most people are discharged in their teens with no route back and no written answers for later.

Going further

Who writes it →Four decades of bilateral clubfoot, decade by decade. Everything here →The full index of hubs and topics. The research →Trying to add evidence where the literature is thin.