If your child breaks a leg, arm, wrist or ankle, know that you are not alone. In fact, data shows up to half of all children will sustain a fracture or buckle break.
“Kids break bones all the time,” explained Geoffrey Haft, MD, a pediatric orthopedic surgeon at Avera Orthopedics. “They are playing sports and jumping off playground equipment, getting in scooter accidents – there are all kinds of activities that kids do where they break bones.”
The good news? Data also says nearly 90% of fractures heal without surgery. “Of course, it depends on the severity of the injury and where the break takes place, but overwhelmingly in children, the majority of broken bones do not require surgery,” Haft said.
And when a fracture does require surgery, based on his 25 years’ experience as a pediatric surgeon, Haft said the healing process is much faster in children. “Kids bounce back from surgery much quicker than adults. They’re usually back to their normal activities within a few months.”
How do I know if my child broke something?
Accidents happen all the time – your toddler falls while climbing the playhouse ladder or your soccer star trips over the ball. Regardless of how the injury happens, severe pain is the number one sign that a bone may be broken
“If a bone breaks, the pain it causes will make it so that your child is not able to put weight on the bone that was injured,” Haft explained. “An X-ray will tell you definitively if the bone is broken.”
Emergency room or urgent care?
Depending on the severity of the break, Haft said in most cases urgent care is a better option than the ER. And an even better option is to visit an Avera walk-in orthopedic clinic.
“If you don’t see anything from the outside that tells you a bone is broken, then your child can be seen at the orthopedic walk-in clinic or urgent care,” Haft said.
Children also have access to pediatric orthopedic specialists right away when you visit an orthopedic walk-in clinic. “Children have a lot of unique conditions that adults and teenagers don’t necessarily have,” Haft said.
For one thing, children are still growing. And because they are still growing, there is a chance that the fracture impacted their growth plate. Growth plate is the name given to the ends of bones where growth happens.
How do fractures impact a child’s growth plate?
In most cases, Haft says when a fracture occurs on a growth plate, it does not impact the bone’s ability to grow. “Kids frequently break through their growth plates. Fortunately, the majority of growth plate injuries are minor,” he said. “Occasionally there can be certain growth plate injury patterns that require treatment to prevent the limb from growing crooked or not growing at all after the injury.”
Growth plate injury management is unique to pediatric orthopedics and may require a few more follow-up X-rays to ensure once the bone is healed, growth is not interrupted.
Buckle breaks are also unique to pediatric orthopedics. This is because children 9 years old and younger have soft bones.
“Their bones are soft and rubbery, so when they break, sometimes rather than cracking, the bone will bend. We call this a buckle fracture or a green stick fracture,” Haft said. “Think of what it looks like when you take a green stick and bend it – instead of snapping, it bends, and you get that little wrinkle in the bark. This is what a buckle fracture or buckle break looks like on a child’s bone. We see this all the time in children.”
What does treatment and recovery look like for buckle breaks and fractures?
Most pediatric fractures take between six to eight weeks to heal.
Buckle breaks are most often treated with temporary, removable braces or slings because they “wrinkle” the bone, they don’t displace the bone. Buckle breaks also tend to heal more quickly.
Fractures are most often treated with braces or casts that provide more rigid immobilization to help the bone heal in place. Treatment also depends on the amount of displacement the fracture caused. Displacement refers to the impact the break had on the bone’s alignment. If the bone remains in alignment following the fracture, most often less treatment is required.
Today, Haft said most treatment methods are removable.
“We sometimes use casts for legs and other breaks that require more rigid immobilization, but for most fractures or buckle breaks, we try and use removable braces so that very quickly kids can take them off and bathe normally,” he said. “You can run into skin problems in a hurry if casts get wet.”
What does recovery look like when a fracture requires surgery?
Depending on the severity of the break, Haft said even when surgery is required to repair a broken bone, children typically heal within six weeks.
Get Help After Injury
You don’t need a referral to see an orthopedic specialist for any kind of injury.
