trouble keeping pacifier in / slow jaw growth / high palate

[Guest guest]

I am curious if any of you have encountered that your son/daughter has had one

side of their jaw that grew slower than the other and/or if any of your children

with plagiocephaly have had high palates.

My son was born with a broken collar bone. He was head down for 6 weeks prior

to birth, this along with assisted vaccume deliver, tortocollis, broken collar

bone and positioning in the womb led to plagiocephaly. He has moderate to

severe and will get his band Nov 16. The craniofacial DR. he sees, said that

his left jaw bone has grown at a slower rate than his right due to positioning

in the womb. I first noticed it at the hospital before we left, however the

nurses assured me it was nothing. Finally after several visits to the

pedatrician, ct, and referal to the craniofacial DR., he finally diagnosed it as

slower grown rate. Which finally put aside my concern of his " crooked smile "

when you looked at his gum line. He had trouble latching in when I tried to

breastfeed, and still can't keep his pacificer in by himself. I have to hold it,

I only do this when he needs it, however it is quite a chore. Looking for

anyone's experiences that might help me put some pieces together. Thanks again.

[Guest guest]

My Elaine has this.  Most of the right side of her skull is smaller than her left, cheek bone, eye, jaw, everything.  Her jaw was VERY crooked at birth.  It was bad enough that the first ped doctor to examine her after birth thought she might actually be missing some bone.  The bottom gum on the right side fit inside the top right gum and the left side didn't meet at all.  I could stick my pinky between them easily when her jaw was closed tight.  I'm still concerned about it but I've trusted her doctor (we see a crainofacial plastic surgeon).  She said we'd watch it but she's almost positive it will even out by the time she's 4 years old.  If it doesn't and they need to fix it surgically it's something they would want to wait to do until after all her adult teeth come in anyway.   Now that she's growing unrestricted Instead of between her sister and my hip) she has evened up a LOT.  She still has a crooked smile but it's leaps and bounds better than where it started.  Currently her right side meets and her left doesn't, but the gap is much smaller, and the meeting side meets.  The bottom gum is no longer inside the top.  She's 17 months old now.

We had all kinds of BF issues (most from her jaw) until she self weaned completely before 4 months, which just about crushed me.  I understood the whys, but being rejected... there's just no words.  I fed her EBM from that point on which made me feel a little better about the whole thing.  She was still getting the goods, just from a bottle.  She never took a pacifier and we didn't push the issue. Somewhere between 3 and 4 months she found her thumb.  She still uses it on occasion when she's crazy tired.

So we're still dealing with it, but it has gotten SO much better with time.  I can't say it's adversely affected anything she's done other than nursing.  Moving to puree and beyond we've encountered no issues.  I haven't taken her to a dentist yet, but far her teeth are popping through just fine (though they come in faster on the right/smaller side).  Have the doctors keep an eye on it and hang in there. 

Elaine (Twin A), 17 months old, danmar helmet grad June '09On Thu, Oct 29, 2009 at 10:11 PM, gina_tibljas <gina_tibljas@...> wrote:

 

I am curious if any of you have encountered that your son/daughter has had one side of their jaw that grew slower than the other and/or if any of your children with plagiocephaly have had high palates.

My son was born with a broken collar bone. He was head down for 6 weeks prior to birth, this along with assisted vaccume deliver, tortocollis, broken collar bone and positioning in the womb led to plagiocephaly. He has moderate to severe and will get his band Nov 16. The craniofacial DR. he sees, said that his left jaw bone has grown at a slower rate than his right due to positioning in the womb. I first noticed it at the hospital before we left, however the nurses assured me it was nothing. Finally after several visits to the pedatrician, ct, and referal to the craniofacial DR., he finally diagnosed it as slower grown rate. Which finally put aside my concern of his " crooked smile " when you looked at his gum line. He had trouble latching in when I tried to breastfeed, and still can't keep his pacificer in by himself. I have to hold it, I only do this when he needs it, however it is quite a chore. Looking for anyone's experiences that might help me put some pieces together. Thanks again.