{"id":7967,"date":"2020-04-03T15:27:15","date_gmt":"2020-04-03T04:27:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/?p=7967"},"modified":"2020-04-08T11:15:10","modified_gmt":"2020-04-08T01:15:10","slug":"kalani-beating-rare-condition-one-step-at-a-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/kalani-beating-rare-condition-one-step-at-a-time\/","title":{"rendered":"Kalani beating rare condition one step at a time"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Words:<\/strong> Alanah Frost, Herald Sun<\/p>\n

Photography:<\/strong> Alex Coppel, Herald Sun<\/p>\n

Strapped to a miniature snowboard, seven-month-old Kalani Chandler is all smiles.<\/strong><\/p>\n

As the tiny tot is helped upright, she laughs and wiggles, despite the contraption keeping her little legs and feet apart. She gazes up at the trees outside the Royal Children\u2019s Hospital with glee, mesmerised by the birds singing.<\/p>\n

The bubbly bub will have to wear the \u201cBoots and Bar\u201d until she is four.<\/p>\n

Kalani was born with amniotic band syndrome, a rare condition that affects the limbs of a baby in utero.<\/p>\n

As a result, she has webbed toes and was born without a left pointer finger and is missing some of her fingernails. She also suffers from left club foot, a condition which has left her foot and leg unaligned and in need of correction.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s like amniotic fluids in the womb that cause limbs to come off,\u201d mum Kimberly Donnelly said.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s like one in 12,000 or 15,000 (diagnosed).<\/p>\n

\u201cShe nearly lost both her big toes. And that\u2019s when the club foot came in because that\u2019s associated with ABS.\u201d<\/p>\n

Doctors first placed the infant\u2019s lower body in casts for six weeks to keep her tiny joints in place, before moving her into the skateboard-like device, which she has worn for up to 23 hours a day. \u201cHer foot is really good at the moment,\u201d Ms Chandler said.<\/p>\n

Kalani has also undergone keyhole surgery to \u201crelease\u201d the tendons in her leg, and will soon have the webbing between her toes cut.<\/p>\n

But the future is bright for this bright baby, who her mum hopes will one day be able to walk and run like any other child. \u201cShe\u2019s been through a lot,\u201d Ms Chandler said. \u201cBut she\u2019s really strong.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\"\"
Kalani Chandler, 7 months, wears a ‘Boots and Bar’ to keep her feet and legs aligned. Picture: Alex Coppel.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/section>\n<\/section>\n<\/article>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/section>\n<\/article>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Strapped to a miniature snowboard, seven-month-old Kalani Chandler is all smiles. Kalani was born with amniotic band syndrome, a rare condition that affects the limbs of a baby in utero.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":195,"featured_media":7969,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8971,7198,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7967","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-good-friday-appeal","category-in-the-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7967","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/195"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7967"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7967\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8003,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7967\/revisions\/8003"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7969"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}