Nursemaid Elbow

So today was a bad Mommy day. Fortunately, Charlotte seems to have already forgotten the incident that I feel so guilty about! In fact, acknowledging this on my blog makes me feel like I am confessing to some crime. But today, as I held Charlotte's hand, I also managed to dislocate her little elbow!

I keep replaying the events as they occurred in my head, but still don't really know what happened. One minute she was running around laughing, and the next minute I figured she was crying because she didn't want to stop playing to get into the car. Then I realized she was holding her arm kind of funny. As I tried to console her, she just kept crying. She might pause for a few seconds and then try to move her arm which would set off more crying. Charlotte rarely cries for more than a minute with most bumps and bruises, so I knew something was really wrong pretty quickly.

We hurried back inside where I called the pediatrician. Luckily, she must have been in her office, because they put me right through to her. She told me that it was nursemaid elbow and gave me some simple instructions over the phone; it was only after she asked me if I'd felt a little "pop" that I found out I'd put her elbow joint back in place! Charlotte, of course, flipped out at my little maneuver, but after a couple of Oreos and a couple musical scenes of Annie, she was back to running around with Maddie.

We've always been really careful not to lift or swing Charlotte by her arms, (like we used to do with my younger siblings ALL of the time) so I thought we would not be at risk for a dislocation. I think when I took her hands to help her to her feet (she'd laughingly laid down in the Monkey grass) she rolled away from me, but I really don't remember. We go through little things like this everyday; I wasn't paying much attention.

WebMD identifies nursemaid elbow as occurring after a sudden pulling force is applied to the extended upper arm of the child while the arm is slightly twisted. Here are the major causes of nursemaid elbow:

• Lifting a child by the hand
  
  
• Swinging a child while holding the child by the hands
  
  
• Pulling arms through the sleeves of jackets
  
  
• Catching a child by the hand to prevent a fall
  
  
• Pulling a child along when in a hurry

I just wanted to post my experience to lessen the chance that you might live through the same thing. I'm thankful everything turned out fine, and that we did not have to go to the emergency room. Whew!