4-year-old girl had to have her leg broken THREE TIMES a day for four months to avoid amputation

A mother has told how she chose to break her daughter's leg three times a day using a grueling procedure to avoid amputation.

Elsie Moravek, four, from Kalamazoo, Michigan, was born with proximal femoral focal deficiency (PFFD), a rare disability, which meant her left leg was deformed and much shorter than her right.

Faced with the prospect of amputation or prosthesis, Elsie's mother Jackie, 28, and father Matt, 31, decided to opt for a third option to have her daughter's leg broken more than 300 times in four months - or three times a day - in a bid to lengthen it by just over four inches.

'A few local doctors suggested amputation, and we considered it because the leg lengthening process is so difficult to endure,' said Jackie, a resource analyst.

'We asked ourselves if we were being cruel to put our daughter through this and whether it was worth it.

'But we knew it was the right decision. We wanted Elsie to have the best life possible.'

Elsie's disability came as a complete shock for her parents.

Her left hip, leg and ankle were not properly formed and reached the length of her right knee.

Jackie and Matt, a quality engineer, sought professional help and met with Dr Shawn Standard, an expert in the procedure at the Sinai Hospital in Baltimore where they decided that leg lengthening was the best option.  

After a six hour operation reconstructing her knee, ankle and hip, Elsie was finally able to walk at 21 months old.

She was fitted with a prosthetic foot, which bridged the gap between her real foot and the floor.

Then, in August 2015, when she was just three years old, Jackie relocated to Baltimore for four months with Elsie – 616 miles from their home - leaving behind her husband and other child Mila, six.

During surgery, Elsie's femur and tibia were surgically split apart and fitted with an external fixator device, with ten pins piercing through her skin, muscle and bone.

Three times a day, her mother had to manually turn screws to pull apart her daughter's femur and tibia 0.039 inches a day, preventing the break from healing each time.

New bone, muscle and skin grew in its place as the leg gradually lengthened by more than four inches over as many months.

Elsie was on constant pain medication throughout her treatment because it was such an agonizing procedure.

Jackie said it left her feeling 'helpless' as a mother watching her go through the procedure which was painful for Elsie and torturous for her mother to see.

'I felt very helpless. I was very pleased with her progress but it was hard to see her in pain and crying,' she said. 

'I would have to put my mum hat on and push through it because I knew what the end result would be.

'Cleaning the open wounds where the ten pins had been drilled into her bone was the worst. It was agony for her. I felt upset watching her go through it, but we had a goal in mind.'

Following the treatment, Elsie's legs are now even – but, as her left limb still has a growth deficiency, they will grow out of sync again.

She will require another procedure to lengthen her left leg by nearly a further four inches once she reaches her full height. But despite all the pain and effort, Jackie said it is 'worth it'.

Jackie said: 'We wanted to give Elsie the best life possible and we thought the best option was to lengthen her leg.

'That means she won't need a prosthetic or to get her leg amputated so she can do everything other girls her age are capable of.

'Elsie was in constant pain and I missed my eldest daughter's first day of school because I was in Baltimore.

'We made a lot of sacrifices for this but every single one of them was worth it.'

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