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Child Prosthetic Legs

Child Prosthetic Legs

Date1965
Credit LineGift of Theresa Helen "Susie" Matthias, London, Ontario, 2024
Object number2024.003.001
Label TextThese prosthetic limbs were made for and used by Theresa Helen Matthias, born in London in 1962, when she was three years old. Susie’s mother had taken doctor-prescribed Thalidomide to combat morning sickness when she was pregnant with Susie. As a result, Susie was born with shortened upper and lower limbs. Susie attended the Thames Valley Crippled Children’s Centre as a small child. In her early years, she also went to the Ontario Crippled Children’s Hospital in Toronto for physical and occupational therapy sessions. She received the prosthetic limbs offered here, as well as prosthetic arms, at that time. Physical therapists taught her to swing her hips from side to side to propel herself forward. As she learned to use the legs, Susie had to wear a helmet to protect her head when she fell. The legs were lengthened over time to match Susie’s growth. Both the prosthetic legs and the arms were intended to provide Susie with a greater degree of independence. But as with other Thalidomide survivors, Susie recognized that another objective of the limbs was to make her more socially acceptable to mainstream society by masking her differences. In Susie’s estimation, the limbs were cumbersome, and although they made her a little more independent, it wasn’t enough. Although she could walk, someone had to lift her on and off the limbs, if, for example, she had to go to the washroom. As well, she couldn’t climb stairs. As for the arms, since they didn’t reach her mouth, they didn’t help her feed herself. Said Susie in an interview, “I have memories of the prosthetic limbs but overall, there weren’t that many fond memories and I found them restrictive. Yes, they might have given me some independence but not much. Because you had to rely on people to assist you, to get you in and out of them, and they wanted people, to have society, accept you more with the prosthetic limbs.”
NameLeg, Artificial