“When Yvette arrived into the world I wasn’t surprised to see her right ear was quite squashed as my midwife had been reporting that baby was engaged from 35 weeks and ‘very low’ for a few weeks before that. No one at the hospital including the paediatrician mentioned about her ear and having had a friend who’s baby had a slightly folded ear that straightened soon after birth, I wasn’t initially worried.
One week later the ear was still the same shape so I consulted a friend who is a GP for advice - we are fortunate enough to have private medical insurance which automatically applied to Yvette at birth so I was actually asking the best route for a quick referral. My friend said she had never seen it before but was a member of a forum for other doctor mums and interestingly in the last few weeks someone had posted with a similar scenario and was offered advice ranging from 'leave it, it’s cute', to 'have you tried EarBuddies?'
I immediately looked up EarBuddies and was quickly able to see that Yvette had quite a pronounced Stahl’s Bar. I read through the reviews and instructions, and quickly realised time was of the essence. After a quick chat, my husband and I decided to order there and then rather than worry about waiting for referrals or getting a GP appointment. While we didn’t mind at all what her ear looked like, we thought about 13 year old Yvette who might be bullied for having a Pixie/Spock ear and felt that if we had the opportunity to fix it now we should. We did also do some research into corrective surgery later in life (if we did decide to leave it just to see if it bothered her or she got bullied) and found that for Stahl’s Bar it’s not terribly successful, so this was another factor we considered.
The kit arrived the next day when Yvette was 8 days old and we had already bathed her in preparation. Fitment was really easy following the guide. I breastfed her while my husband applied the splint and tape. We decided that as I was breastfeeding she would probably need the splint on for around 2.5 weeks.
We tried to manage our expectations as Yvette’s ear did look worse than many of the other examples on the website. After a week and a half the tape was looking pretty dog-eared and tatty so we decided to remove it and reapply. We were stunned with the results! The ‘Bar’ was entirely gone and her ear looked normal. We really couldn’t believe how successful it had been in such a short space of time. After taking progress photos we reapplied the splint, this time putting more focus on rounding the shape of the ear. Again I breastfed while my husband applied the splint. She was more alert this time but quite happy having it done. A week later, Yvette not even 4 weeks old, we have taken off the splint and are so pleased with the result.
Before EarBuddies
Hair around ear shaved
Narrow Tapes fitted
Wide Tapes fitted
After 1.5 Weeks
Final Result - After 2.5 Weeks
The ear is now more curved than after 1.5 weeks and looks perfect. We are so glad we just sorted this ourselves rather than wait and go down the referral route*. An inexpensive solution has offered a surgery-free alternative for our daughter which may save her years of bullying and torment in the future. We would definitely recommend this to others.
*Both our community midwife and health visitor said, coincidentally, someone else in the area's baby had just been born with the same affliction a couple of weeks before Yvette. For them it ran in the family so they were aware and raised it with the paediatrician at birth, and have since been given a referral. At 4 weeks old the health visitor said they had still been waiting for that referral to come.”
Update: “We are so thrilled with the result. Yvette is now 9m old and you would have never known. I’ve recommended EarBuddies to several friends since!”