Re: Some words of comfort/advice?

[Guest guest]

I suppose it depends how bad it is and how much you trust your medics, as to whether you need to worry at this age.  My granddaughter 'D'  was breech and has all the symptoms you describe .Her plagio is 25mm , the severe catagory .She is now 4.5 months so cant sit up yet either .Her tort (the neck problem you describe) was missed initially so my daughter wasnt told anything about repositioning ,special mattresses, pillows,  or any strategies to minimize  the time the baby spent on her back . Result , flat rear right head  which most of the medics in the UK said would resolve itself and a bulge on her right forhead. Then finally a paed agreed it would take years to round out her head , and it was by no means a certain thing. The osteopath insisted he could work with it but agreed it did indeed need banding  for best results. 'D' had her helmet on Monday last, and has had no problems whatsoever, she barely notices it. Her head picture is the first of the new photos under recent activity.

 

 It boils down to how severe you think the shape of your baby's head looks , whether you are happy with it if it doesnt change in the future, and if youre not,  whether you believe the medics if they say it will resolve .As soon as my daughter had a  diagnosis, she bought a sleepcurve mattress, minimized the time the baby spent leaning back against anything, bought a thick sheepskin for when she did, and did lots of repositioning, tummytime,and  stretching for the neck. You can also have the pushchair a little less flat to keep the head  from weighing fully against the back and   consider  a little  sqashy neck support to keep the head

from lolling . baby carriers and bumbos can be useful too .  Lots of people have found  osteopathy useful for the tort , it definately helped 'D' to get more movement in the neck. I think at your baby's age , if its not very severe, you can afford to wait a couple of months and do aggressive repositioning and stuff , and you may well get enough improvement to suit you . On the other hand, the younger the baby  when you start, the quicker the result as the helmet will catch more growth spurts but theres plenty of babies on here that get good results after starting at 8months and more . Good luck. 

 

 .On Tue, Jun 30, 2009 at 6:02 PM, true_scot73 <cammyrough@...> wrote:

Our daughter will be 4 months old next week and due to her breech position in the womb, she had a problem with her neck muscles, meaning that until now she has been almost constantly sleeping looking to her right side.

This has meant that the right side of the back of her head is much flatter. Now that I am aware of it I also notice that it is slightly detectable for the front in that the right side of her forehead is a slightly different shape from the left.

A quick search and I realised that Positional Plagiocephaly is the name for it.She is getting physio for her neck and the DR's say that the shape of her head will correct itself, but I am just looking for any words of advice as to how we can help this process.

I also wondered if she is too young to be worried about it as she cant even sit up yet, so maybe I am being silly! And is this forehead thing normal too?Thanks.

[Guest guest]

Hi that is exactly the story of my son......I addressed to the Dr at 2 months, then 3 months and they said that oh all babies have flat heads and that it would correct itself, well at his 4 month visit the Dr looked at his head and said wow he really does have a flat head! How nice! He was also getting facial asymmetry and his forehead was becoming misshapen as well. He was receiving PT for torticollis and we tried repositioning but it didn't make much difference. we took him to a specialist and to Cranial Technologies in Paramus NJ. They both felt he needed a helmet. He wore his helmet for 4 months (got it at 6 months old) and has been helmet free since 5/15. We are soooooo glad we did it. His head is nice and round and we dont have to look at his head with regrets on our part. We

were dreading the whole thing, but he got used to it and the time did go by fast. 4 months is a great time to look into it, the earlier you helmet the better results!!

Good luck!

Lori, mom to

DOC Band graduate!

From: true_scot73 <cammyrough@...>Subject: Some words of comfort/advice?Plagiocephaly Date: Tuesday, June 30, 2009, 5:02 PM

Our daughter will be 4 months old next week and due to her breech position in the womb, she had a problem with her neck muscles, meaning that until now she has been almost constantly sleeping looking to her right side.This has meant that the right side of the back of her head is much flatter. Now that I am aware of it I also notice that it is slightly detectable for the front in that the right side of her forehead is a slightly different shape from the left.A quick search and I realised that Positional Plagiocephaly is the name for it.She is getting physio for her neck and the DR's say that the shape of her head will correct itself, but I am just looking for any words of advice as to how we can help this process..I also wondered if she is too young to be worried about it as she cant even sit up yet, so maybe I am being silly! And is this forehead thing normal

too?Thanks.