Flat Chested Kitten Syndrome

[Kayleighmac10]

Hi all,

Just wanted some opinions we have had our first litter with our first queen. The kittens are 7.2 weeks old and one kitten has been diagnosed with flat chested kitten syndrome. He's is the happiest little chappy and the sweetest boy. He was the smallest kitten but now has caught up weight wise with the biggest (there was always a good 50g between them since birth). From what I've read if they survive this long then they have a pretty good chance of survival. Does anyone have any succesful experiences with them?

 

[FeebysOwner]

Hi. Never heard of this before, but I did a search on this site for previous posts. Here is the link for those:
Search Results for Query: flat chested kitten syndrome | TheCatSite

Hope this is helpful until some members can come along and offer their first hand experiences.

 

[mani]

Hi K Kayleighmac10 and welcome to TCS!

I do have experience with them and yes, if he is thriving there's really no reason why he shouldn't continue to do so. There are things that can be tried in severe cases: Flat Chested Kitten Syndrome?? but it looks like your boy could be one of the lucky ones.

Has he been seen by a vet?

 

[abyeb]

Here’s a TCS article about Flat-Chested Kitten Syndrome: Flat Chested Kitten (fck)

 

[bklyn]

We had a kitten with Pectus Excavatum (where his ribs were not only flat but inverted at the tip) in our rescue over a year ago, I had posted a thread for him. I did physical therapy to get his chest shape back to normal. I ended up falling in love with him and keeping him. Here he is at about 1.5 years old

 

[Kayleighmac10]

Thank you for all your replies, I'm trying to stay positive. Weve decided with the prospective owners to wait until he is 10-12 weeks old to see how he develops. Bklyn what physical therapy did you do?

 

[bklyn]

I gently massaged his sides every day multiple times a day trying to basically guide them into a normal shape. His case was extremely severe but by three months he was normal. When they're little, their bones haven't fully hardened and doing physical therapy to reshape them can really work! There is also a little vest I made for my guy that basically put constant, gentle pressure on his ribs to guide them into shape. Of course, you should always consult with a veterinarian, and there's the possibility that his shape has caused underlying problems, but for my experience this worked very well. I had done x-rays as well that showed his tiny misshapen rib cage was displacing organs and putting a lot of stress on his system.

 

[Sarthur2]

This thread has info and pictures of the vest that will help the kitten:

Flat Chested Kitten Syndrome??

K Kayleighmac10