Julia was born with an ear that is folded over--the medical diagnosis was a combination of cupped ear and Stahl's ear. It has no impact on her hearing and is just a cosmetic thing. Someone pointed out that it would also make wearing eyeglasses or sunglasses difficult because the folded ear wouldn't be able to hold them up.
Of course, she is perfect to us and I find her little folded ear to be adorable, but after discussing it Joe and I decided that a 12 year-old Julia would probably thank us for correcting this and giving her a "normal" ear if the option exists. Fortunately there is a new product called EarWell that was just filed with the FDA this year as a class I medical device, and from what they have posted for other kids, the results are amazing. Copy and paste this into your internet browser if you would like to see the website: http://www.earwells.com or this if you would like to see a youtube video about it. http://www.bodysculptor.com/facial-surgery-chicago/earwell/
The device benefits from the fact that babies' ears are extremely malleable immediately after they are born due to high levels of estrogen in the baby's system from its mother's body during the pregnancy. Babies have ears and noses that are made of very soft cartilage at birth that hardens into regular cartilage in the first 4-6 weeks as the estrogen leaves their body. Apparently quite a bit starts to leave in the first 7 days, because the results with this device are best if they are applied by the end of the baby's first week. We learned this when Julia was 6 days old and then did some quick research and got an appointment with a plastic surgeon to install them last Thursday just as she turned a week old. (Don't worry--no surgery or anesthesia is needed to put the devices on, but the manufacturer said they prefer to use surgeons instead of pediatricians because plastic surgeons are more used to installing devices/reshaping/molding body parts.) So just wanted to explain why blog pictures of Julia will have her looking a bit like Princess Leia for the next 4-6 weeks as she wears her "ear shells" as we have described them to the boys. Here is a before picture as well of Julia with her cute little folded ear.
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