Re: no helmet for us!

[Guest guest]

I am glad to hear your hard work paid off! Awesome job! Enjoy your little one's

nice round head!

> From: desiree_scorcia <desiree_scorcia@...>

> Subject: no helmet for us!

> Plagiocephaly

> Date: Thursday, December 18, 2008, 10:29 PM

> hello everyone! i haven't posted since my daughter's

> PT told us she

> looked like a borderline case for a helmet back in october,

> but i

> wanted to update. we finally saw the cranio-facial

> specialist today,

> and he said maggie's head looked fantastic to him. he

> said to keep

> doing the repo and PT until she's at least one, but

> that her head

> looks almost totally normal.

>

> i'm so excited! he told me i should be really proud of

> myself and our

> PT (and maggie of course). that's so nice to hear,

> because as you all

> know it really is a lot of work to do the PT every day and

> all the repo.

>

> so, just to quickly recap from the beginning, i noticed

> maggie's tilt

> and flat spot just before she turned 3 months old (end of

> august). we

> started PT almost right away (september) and maggie did

> wonderfully.

> she's so easy going, and very strong, so after about 2

> months (mid

> november) the PT told us we could come back in 2 months. at

> the end of

> october was when she'd told us that we might want to

> just look into

> the helmet. before that, i was using a receiving blanket to

> tip her to

> her side at night and just keeping her off her back as much

> as

> possible (which was easy, she was sitting up with help by

> the time we

> started PT, so she didn't spend any more time on her

> head awake).

> after the PT mentioned the helmet, i gave in at night and

> let maggie

> just nurse in bed with me all night. this kept her off the

> flat spot

> all night, but has of course gotten us into some bad

> habits. it's

> totally worth it though, i'm so happy we wont't

> need the helmet!!

>

> another thing the specialist said we had going for us was

> that maggie

> grew so much over the last 6 months. she was an average

> size baby (7

> lbs 15 oz and 20.5 inches) but is 29 inches long and 19 lbs

> at 6

> months old. all that growth gave her head a great chance to

> fill out.

>

> that's all! i'm SOOO excited!! i don't have any

> numbers to share (i

> wish i did), but judging from the photos i've seen

> here, she couldn't

> have been more than 7 or 8 mm at her worst, truly a lowest

> borderline

> case, in case our repo and PT success could help someone

> else make a

> decision.

>

> oh, one last thing, she still has a bulge on the left side

> (the right

> is the flatter side) of the nape of her neck. i was a bit

> worried

> about this being something maybe related to the cause of

> her tort, but

> the specialist said no. he said that it's that this is

> where the neck

> muscle anchors to the skull, and that it's the right

> side that is

> flattened, not the left side bulging, and that the

> flattening was

> caused by the muscle pulling tighter on the skull on that

> side. go

> figure. he said it probably won't get much better, but

> there's nothing

> that i can do about it, and it won't be noticeable when

> she's bigger

> anyway. so, in case anyone else is worried about that,

> it's nothing.

>

> -desiree