Not sure if I should be concerned

October 28, 2009

Hi, I'm new to this group and not sure if I belong here or not.

My youngest daughter is three months old and was diagnosed a week ago with

torticollis. I had noticed her head tilting a few days before and realized that

she was that same way inutero. Because she was breech for the majority of my

pregnancy we had an ultrasound (to confirm her head down) about three weeks

before she was born. Her head was down in my left hip and tilted the exact way

she was when I noticed her torticollis at 12 weeks old.

I looked up torticollis and found myself here...somewhere along the line I saw

the different head shapes and recognized the oval shaped head as my daughter's

head shape.

This was interesting to me because she was born with her head moulded from birth

and her hair had the " male-pattern baldness " look to it...it was thin in the

front and long in the back and sides. If she was my first or second or even

third child, then maybe I would just say she's within the range of normal, but

she is my seventh child. None of my other kids were breech...none of my other

kids had any head moulding after delivery(and two were 11 pounds, she was not

quite 8 pounds) and none of my other kids had this hair pattern. Her head

looked as though it was flat on the sides and tall in the back and her hair

pattern made it look worse. She was my smallest baby and only breech so I have

been attibuting all her differences to that. Then I noticed her head tilted to

the side.

Within days of me and my husband noticing her head tilt, we started positioning

her and holding her such to compensate. We also did massage...she is so tight!

Then while waiting for the prescribed PT appt we researched further about

repositioning and stretching. In eight days she was holding her head straight,

although her shoulders and neck are rounded and stiff...her head was straight in

8 days! (not to mention she is sleeping better and crying less) We have

continued with the repo and stretching and have now noticed that her head tilts

the complete other direction!!!! We have PT to start today...

I'm convinced of two things:

1) Her tort will be helped by PT...(but does she need something more than PT?

and what's with the head going the other direction?)

2) Her head is flat on the sides, but round in the back...(Does she need

treatment or is it " going to round out on its own " ?)

I looked for some before and after photos of oval shaped heads but couldn't find

any...has anyone had any of these experiences?

Thank you for any input!

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