Skip to main content.

Hip Infections

What are hip infections?

Infections are anything that gets into the body and reproduces. Viruses, bacteria, fungi and parasites can all cause infections.

Our skin normally has bacteria on it. It is these germs that most often cause infections in the bones and joints. A bacterium called Staphylococcus aureus (staph aureus) causes about nine out of 10 bone and joint infections in children.

Infections in the bones and joints can cause pain and disabilities. With proper treatment, however, almost all infections can be cured before they cause serious problems.

How do you evaluate hip infections?

Areas of infection around the pelvis.
Areas of infection around the pelvis.

First, we examine your child, looking for signs of infection. We may gently move your child’s legs to see if she is stiff or cannot move as much as usual. We will check to see if your child’s hip or other joints are swollen, warm or red.

The doctor may take radiographs to look for signs of swelling and changes in your child’s bones and joints.

If the doctor does not see signs of infection on the radiographs, he may ask your child to have a bone scan or an MRI.

He may also remove fluid from the hip joint using a needle (aspiration).

Who gets hip infections?

Hip infections in children are not very common. About one in every 3,000 children gets an infection in or around the hip.

Children who are between ages 2 and 5 are most likely to get hip infections, but children approaching their teenage years get them, too.

What is your experience with hip infections?

For more than a decade, doctors at Children’s Hospital have taken a team approach to treating bone and joint infections. Our specialists in infectious diseases and orthopedic surgery work together to help your child.

We treat more than 100 cases of bone and joint infection a year, many of them children with hip infections or pelvic infections.

Our doctors are known for developing a treatment plan for bone and joint infection that has greatly reduced the amount of time children who are being treated with antibiotics must get them though an IV line.

Our doctors write and lecture on the subject of bone and joint infections regularly.

How do you treat hip infections?

Doctors treat most bone and joint infections with antibiotics. If your child is very sick, she may need to get the medicine through an IV line. If she needs an IV, she will probably be in the hospital for four or five days.

Sometimes very sick children must have surgery because hip infections can cause pus to form in the joint, and the pus usually must be drained. To do this, doctors most often make a small incision on the front of the thigh just below the hip joint.

During your child’s stay in the hospital, doctors may ask for several blood tests that help show how well the treatment is working. We may also ask your child to have an MRI, X-rays, ultrasound or a CT scan to track her progress.

Once your child leaves the hospital, she will have to take antibiotics by mouth for three or four weeks.