
This will help you learn exercises and movements you can do to help strengthen your arm muscles and regain your range of motion. Regardless of whether or not you need surgery, your doctor will probably suggest following up with physical therapy.

In some cases, doctors can even use an artificial material to create a new piece of bone.

If some of the bone has been lost or severely crushed, your surgeon may take a piece of bone from another area of your body or a donor and add it to your humerus. If you have an open fracture, which involves a piece of bone sticking through your skin, surgery will be required to clean up the broken ends and they may use pins and screws and plates to hold the broken ends of your humerus in place. There are two main approaches that your surgeon may use: Occasionally, surgery is required with either plates, screws, rods, or sometimes replacement of your shoulder joint with use of a prosthesis.ĭistal fractures and more severe proximal or mid-shaft fractures usually require surgery. However, you’ll still need to wear a sling, brace, or splint to keep your arm from moving and stabilize your shoulder, if needed. This makes it easier for your humerus to heal on its own. In many cases, proximal and mid-shaft humerus fractures don’t require surgery because the broken ends usually stay close together. This will help them determine what kind of fracture you have and whether you have any other injuries. They may also have you do some movements with your arm. To determine the best treatment, your doctor will start by taking an X-ray of your arm. It will function normally throughout your baby’s life.Treating a humerus fracture depends on several factors, including the type of fracture and whether there are any loose bone fragments. It is not more likely to break again, and will not be too long or too short. Over the next few weeks to months, the bone will become more and more narrow so that about 3 to 4 months after birth, the bone is normal in appearance and function. However, the body is not done with it yet. At this point, the bone is completely healed. He or she may start moving the hand and wrist at this time.Īt about 4 to 5 weeks, the healing callus is visible on X-ray, and you can really feel the huge bump of bone in your baby’s arm. About this time, the infant is less bothered when the arm is disturbed. It is a natural process.Īfter about 10 days to 2 weeks, there is early bone healing (called callus) that gently holds the bone ends in place. The bone can be angulated 45 degrees and the body will straighten it out on its own. In a newborn, the bone does not need to be lined up much at all to achieve perfect healing. Surgery is not recommended, because the healing process without surgery occurs so quickly and reliably that surgery is not needed. This makes these devices too risky for a newborn. Unfortunately, your baby cannot tell you he or she is in pain, and a splint or cast could easily become too tight or slip out of place causing permanent scarring or damage to the nerves. Splinting or casting is not recommended for newborn humerus fracture. A stretchy netting (often used for burn patient dressings) can be used over the chest to help hold the arm. Usually this means leaving it inside the onesie, or using a long-sleeve onesie and pinning the sleeve to the opposite shoulder. As caregivers, you and your nurses will find a way to keep the arm from moving too much.

Moving the arm increases the pain, so this is a logical response. Your baby will react to a humerus fracture by not moving the affected arm at all. A neonatal humerus fracture will most likely heal and will become just fine on their own This can be a scary thing to learn about your newborn child, but it is a better outcome for the situation. The humerus (upper arm bone) can also become broken. Sometimes this means the collarbone becomes broken. Due to the risks to the baby, the doctor or nurse delivering the baby will do what is needed to make the delivery happen while avoiding pulling on the head or neck (which could cause permanent nerve damage to an arm). This is a potentially deadly situation for the child, since the umbilical cord is pinched during this time as well. When a baby is born too quickly, or the baby is too big for the mother’s birth canal, the baby’s head can get delivered, but the shoulders and chest get stuck.
