Flat spot on head

Hi,

Me again. When we went to our 2 month well baby the ped pointed out that one of the girls has a flat spot on the back of her head. She gave us some stretching exercises to do and told us to try to turn her head the other way as much as possible. The problem is that she adjusts when she's sleeping and always ends up sleeping on the flat spot.

I asked the ped if she would need a helmet and she said she's only done that for one baby and she doesn't think it's necessary. I don't want that.

Did any of you have a flat spot on your babies head? Did it correct over time as they became more mobile? I'm worried about it. I wake up and turn her head in the middle of the night...she turns it right back...it's useless. The stretches don't seem to do much either.

Is there anything short of the helmet that we can do? I'm hoping to hear that it gets better with time.

 

Helmets are for extreme cases, don't worry about that yet. One of my girls had a flat spot and I used to have to fight her to get her head to turn the other way. I would lay her on the opposite side and that seemed to help a lot. Also try to put more interesting things to the other side to get her to turn on her own. Even if you can get her to turn for a little while it's better than being constantly on the flat spot.

 

I have one with a flat spot. It gets littler or less noticable over time. One thing our pedi. told us was to put an unbreakable mirror on the outside of the crib so she could look at herself while not laying on her flat spot. It helped out some.

 

I know this can be scary and worrisome. My first child, Sasha, was badly breech and completely tore her neck muscle in utero and after she was born had a severe flat spot and developmental delays. Wherever we put her down (crib, bouncy seat, car seat, swing, etc.) only exacerbated her flat spot. The best and first thing you should do is have her evaluated by a physical therapist who does pediatrics and has experience with positional torticollis (the neck tightening) and positional plagiocephaly (head flattening). Then your treatment plan will be in place after an initial evaluation.....this is NOT meant to scare you at all. This is good info that you should further research and talk with your pediatrician about. You may have to only go a couple of times to pt and have everything resolve. Your pediatrician will write you a prescription for pt and off you go to the evaluation.

It will get worse if you are not vigilant about the stretching exercises, you are in a precious window of time as early intervention is KEY. I am pretty well versed in the treatment protocol and when we were going through this 4 years ago, I had to tell our pediatrician what we were going to do. It took FIVE and a HALF months to get Sasha diagnosed. I was told I was a "nervous new mother" after I was telling all 4 doctors in the practice that something was wrong. Comments like "oh when her hair grows in, you won't see it". She had breastfeeding problems, lost a lot of weight, was labeled with colic as she screamed all the time if she wasnt on my breast.....you use your neck muscles to suck, which then stimulates supply and demand. Well she nursed ALL day/night and cried all the time. She couldnt suck properly to get milk flow going because her neck was compromised!!! Well the poor baby was hungry and she was not getting enough milk. Finally I supplemented with formula and a fast flow nipple, she stopped crying and was putting on weight. (and this was after I was condescended to about supplementing with formula by my pediatrician!) I had to advocate for my precious little baby and find my own way.

I hope your pediatrician explained why the stretching exercises are physically important and the reason for them. Your daughter now has a tightening in her neck, called torticollis. Which can range from mild (like when you wake up with a stiff neck to extreme like my daughter where she had an actual muscle tear). The muscles are now tight in your daughter's neck which are holding the plates in her head tight where they cannot shift along with her growth pattern, thus causing the flat spot! If those muscles are not loosened up, the plates wont shift as her brain/skull grows and the flat spot will get worse. Pretty simple concept as those neck muslces attach to the base of the skull.

I was doing an infant massage class with Sasha at our local hospital here in CT and the teacher pulled me aside and gently pointed out that Sasha was not holding her neck/head the way she should for her age, which was 5 months at the time. I told the teacher that I had been telling my pediatrician from birth that something was wrong and she encouraged me to finally make the doctors listen to me. Sasha at 5 months had some developmental physical delays, not sitting up, not rolling over, head cocked to one side, etc. So I made the call to the pediatrician and said "we are going to diagnose Sasha today and I want to be heard".....went in and she was diagnosed with positional plagiocephaly and torticollis. And I researched treatment and off we went to pt, then had to do a helmet from Cranial Technologies. (we promptly changed pediatrician's as well!)

Good websites to educate yourself further:
www.cranialtech.com www.plagiocephaly.com www.torticollis.com and run some general Google searches too on "treatment for positional plagiocephaly and torticollis". Also, these two conditions go hand in hand and are VERY common in multiples.

You are in a great position to reverse the flat spot as your baby is so young, Sasha was much older at 5 1/2 months and the plates in her head were hardening and the flat spot was pretty severe. I attribute all of her success to physical therapy and her DOC band. Please educate yourself about this condition, knowledge is power and then you can make your own decisions and feel good about what YOU want to do. Pediatrician's unfortunately are still VERY relaxed about torticollis and plagiocephaly. And ultimately, what is the harm in having a physical therapist do a quick evaluation to tell you what level the neck tightening is that is causing/keeping the flat spot there. You will feel 100% confident that you are doing the right stretching exercises and feel well supported by your pt who has explicit experience with this situation.

And lastly, you are an awesome mom to seek out advice and advocate for your daughter! She will be fine, this is probably harder on you more than anything If I can help answer any further questions, please dont hesitate to ask. (after Sasha's treatment with pt and her DOC band helmet, Cranial Technologies offered me a job because I had educated myself so much about these conditions because the area pediatricians did not have ENOUGH experience with it!)

best, jillian in CT

 

QUOTE(Jillianstwins @ Nov 25 2007, 03:09 PM) [snapback]508071[/snapback]
I know this can be scary and worrisome. My first child, Sasha, was badly breech and completely tore her neck muscle in utero and after she was born had a severe flat spot and developmental delays. Wherever we put her down (crib, bouncy seat, car seat, swing, etc.) only exacerbated her flat spot. The best and first thing you should do is have her evaluated by a physical therapist who does pediatrics and has experience with positional torticollis (the neck tightening) and positional plagiocephaly (head flattening). Then your treatment plan will be in place after an initial evaluation.....this is NOT meant to scare you at all. This is good info that you should further research and talk with your pediatrician about. You may have to only go a couple of times to pt and have everything resolve. Your pediatrician will write you a prescription for pt and off you go to the evaluation.

It will get worse if you are not vigilant about the stretching exercises, you are in a precious window of time as early intervention is KEY. I am pretty well versed in the treatment protocol and when we were going through this 4 years ago, I had to tell our pediatrician what we were going to do. It took FIVE and a HALF months to get Sasha diagnosed. I was told I was a "nervous new mother" after I was telling all 4 doctors in the practice that something was wrong. Comments like "oh when her hair grows in, you won't see it". She had breastfeeding problems, lost a lot of weight, was labeled with colic as she screamed all the time if she wasnt on my breast.....you use your neck muscles to suck, which then stimulates supply and demand. Well she nursed ALL day/night and cried all the time. She couldnt suck properly to get milk flow going because her neck was compromised!!! Well the poor baby was hungry and she was not getting enough milk. Finally I supplemented with formula and a fast flow nipple, she stopped crying and was putting on weight. (and this was after I was condescended to about supplementing with formula by my pediatrician!) I had to advocate for my precious little baby and find my own way.

I hope your pediatrician explained why the stretching exercises are physically important and the reason for them. Your daughter now has a tightening in her neck, called torticollis. Which can range from mild (like when you wake up with a stiff neck to extreme like my daughter where she had an actual muscle tear). The muscles are now tight in your daughter's neck which are holding the plates in her head tight where they cannot shift along with her growth pattern, thus causing the flat spot! If those muscles are not loosened up, the plates wont shift as her brain/skull grows and the flat spot will get worse. Pretty simple concept as those neck muslces attach to the base of the skull.

I was doing an infant massage class with Sasha at our local hospital here in CT and the teacher pulled me aside and gently pointed out that Sasha was not holding her neck/head the way she should for her age, which was 5 months at the time. I told the teacher that I had been telling my pediatrician from birth that something was wrong and she encouraged me to finally make the doctors listen to me. Sasha at 5 months had some developmental physical delays, not sitting up, not rolling over, head cocked to one side, etc. So I made the call to the pediatrician and said "we are going to diagnose Sasha today and I want to be heard".....went in and she was diagnosed with positional plagiocephaly and torticollis. And I researched treatment and off we went to pt, then had to do a helmet from Cranial Technologies. (we promptly changed pediatrician's as well!)

Good websites to educate yourself further:
www.cranialtech.com www.plagiocephaly.com www.torticollis.com and run some general Google searches too on "treatment for positional plagiocephaly and torticollis". Also, these two conditions go hand in hand and are VERY common in multiples.

You are in a great position to reverse the flat spot as your baby is so young, Sasha was much older at 5 1/2 months and the plates in her head were hardening and the flat spot was pretty severe. I attribute all of her success to physical therapy and her DOC band. Please educate yourself about this condition, knowledge is power and then you can make your own decisions and feel good about what YOU want to do. Pediatrician's unfortunately are still VERY relaxed about torticollis and plagiocephaly. And ultimately, what is the harm in having a physical therapist do a quick evaluation to tell you what level the neck tightening is that is causing/keeping the flat spot there. You will feel 100% confident that you are doing the right stretching exercises and feel well supported by your pt who has explicit experience with this situation.

And lastly, you are an awesome mom to seek out advice and advocate for your daughter! She will be fine, this is probably harder on you more than anything If I can help answer any further questions, please dont hesitate to ask. (after Sasha's treatment with pt and her DOC band helmet, Cranial Technologies offered me a job because I had educated myself so much about these conditions because the area pediatricians did not have ENOUGH experience with it!)

best, jillian in CT



Thanks so much!!

 

Jillian gave a great post!

My son began PT for torticollis at 8 weeks. He went 1 time a week and we did not see enough improvment and then it was increased to two times a week. He also had a flat spot and after doing the repositioning and pt and stretching, it rounded out. At 4 months we took him to Cranial Technologies to get measured for a helmet but he fell in the mild to moderate so he did not need one. My sisiter had the same problem as Jillian with her sons diagnoses. The ped missed it so he began therapy at 5 months and he did end up needing a helmet.


At 8 weeks, the ped said my sons was more severe then an avereage baby with tort. I guess it is common in babies but by 4 months often corrects itself. However, the more severe cases need pt at an earlier age because they wont correct themselves.


QUOTE
I was doing an infant massage class with Sasha at our local hospital here in CT and the teacher pulled me aside and gently pointed out that Sasha was not holding her neck/head the way she should for her age, which was 5 months at the time. I told the teacher that I had been telling my pediatrician from birth that something was wrong and she encouraged me to finally make the doctors listen to me. Sasha at 5 months had some developmental physical delays, not sitting up, not rolling over, head cocked to one side, etc. So I made the call to the pediatrician and said "we are going to diagnose Sasha today and I want to be heard".....went in and she was diagnosed with positional plagiocephaly and torticollis. And I researched treatment and off we went to pt, then had to do a helmet from Cranial Technologies. (we promptly changed pediatrician's as well!)


Thought this was intersting because after telling my ped my son had a breathing problem, he said it was nothing and then after going to an infant massage class, the therapist told me what was wrong with him.

 

OH! I should have mentioned.....Sasha is now 4 1/2 and beautiful and you would NEVER know that she had any issues AT ALL. Her physical delays were all over come and she is a normal, healthy happy girl who loves school and is just awesome.

My son Bennett was born 14 months after Sasha....normal pregnancy, he weighed 8lbs 5oz, big healthy robust boy, who just after being delivered via c-section had his lung collapse (pneumothorax). In the NICU for 9 days, he developed a flat spot, he kept turning his head away from the side his chest tube was in. But he had a neurotic mommy who knew what to do and I talked to the NICU nurses to reposition his head. We wedged him with bean bags, propped him up, tried it all and the little bugger would shimmy down and turn his head back! So when we brought him home 9 days later, his flat spot was getting worse. I talked to our NEW pediatrician and zipped Bennett off to a pt evaluation. He had a MILD torticollis and we did pt for 4 weeks, once a week. Then at 3 months we had our first consult with Cranial Technologies. (3 months is the benchmark to start treatment). The cranial specialist there said he was borderline and ultimately it was our call to do the band or not do the band.

We then went back to our pt and our pediatrician to openly talk about what to do. I was anguished, here we just went through this with our daughter in the last year and now my precious boy! Our pediatrician felt comfortable coaching us to give Bennett all the tummy time and nap time on his tummy we could do. (he was always in my sight while napping or wake time on his tummy) So we opted NOT to do it, trusted our pediatrician that with me being extra vigilant with is stretching exercises and all the monitored tummy time/nap time I could handle, that Bennett's head WOULD round out by age 3.

Bennett is 3 1/2, my beautiful boy, with his head rounded in the back. Probably could be rounder, but it looks just fine. He was labeled "MILD", and it looked like someone hit him on the back of his head with a pan....flat!!\

SO point being, EDUCATE yourself, RESEARCH the treatment protocol....I have given you two experiences with it...one more severe than the other. It was hard and stressful, but I made it through, learned a lot about myself and the medical community and learned TO SPEAK UP for my babies.

Now if I could just make it through our (surprise) twin pregnancy! HA! Thank GOD for this message board And yes, I am stressing about our b/g twins having head/neck issues........but now I know what to do!

One quick thing, Sasha only wore her DOC band from 6 months to just under a year....we got GREAT correction. Looking back, it was only a blip in time.

Hang in there, BIG hugs to you and anyone who has had to deal with this. xojillian

 

Just wanted to agree with everything that has been said. A lot of pediatricians are very lax about this condition since its incidence is really only starting to increase dramatically in the last 10 years or so. Definitely get a knowledgeable pediatric physical therapist to work with your child. I think if my pediatrician would have listened to me when Grace was your child's age and referred us to pt, we might not be in the state we are in now. I saw a dramatic difference in the ease with which I could reposition her in her crib after only a couple of pt sessions. She was like yours in that she would immediately turn her head back to the affected side. If I could have effectively repositioned her without her always turning her head back, her flat spot might not have worsened. As it is, she is now in a DOC band.

There's a good chance you won't have to go as far as a helmet if you are aggressive with repositioning now. It may take really being firm with your pediatrician or switching to get a referral for pt. Though I think the band is doing great for Grace, I would have preferred not to have to do it. If you do end up needing to go this route though, the kids handle it just fine. The band never bothers her at all and we are getting great correction. I wouldn't hesitate to put another child in a band if that's what they needed.

Good luck!

Suzanne

 

First, I am furious with Jillian's pediatricians! How could they dismiss her that way?!? I know it happens all the time, but still... Jillian, your children are lucky to have you as their advocate. Thanks for posting your story.

Alex has a slight flat spot on his left side. At his six week appt, our ped said to roll up a blanket and put it under his left side, thus forcing him to lie on his right side and force him to look to the right. We've been doing that, but haven't been entirely successful. I've also been pushing tummy-time more, forcing Alex to lift his head more. I wish the ped had sent us straight to physical therapy. We needed it for my dd at 5 weeks for torticollis, and her PT was done by 3 months.

Good luck. Let us know how it turns out.

 

Hi Suzanne

Big hugs to you, I sure do know how you feel. This will be a blip in time for you and Grace, it will be SO worth it when you look back in a few years. I recently was taking some Christmas decorations off the shelves in our basement and came upon Sasha's "before" head cast and her "after" head cast when she completed treatment.....and it made me smile. I felt so proud that my sweet girl is okay, I jumped on it and did what we had to do. It WAS stressful though, and it is always harder on the mom than anyone else.

Just like you said, the babies are SO not bothered by the bands...... and they are more common now. Four years ago, I felt like everyone was staring at us when we went out. But now you see the DOC bands everywhere. I always make a point to stop that particular mom and show off Sasha to them, that this is the end result, that they will get through it and they are GOOD mom's for advocating for their babies.

Whether it is a mild case or severe, it is still stressful that "something" is wrong with your child. Something fun we did was have a friend of ours paint pretty little flowers all over it! It was so cute.

To the original poster, if your pediatrician gives you resistance when you ask for a referral for a pt consult.....dont sit back, SPEAK UP Better to be told by the pt good news, than wait and have a situation on your hands like you are reading about in this message thread.

Okay, I surely have said my peace! Sorry if I sound "preachy" ladies, my intent is to be helpful and supportive. I am so passionate about this topic as I had NO one to ask, or vent to...four years ago no one had EVER heard of Torticollis or Plagiocephaly in our area and we are on the shoreline in CT, great hospitals, doctors, etc. Heck Yale New Haven Hospital, is 45 minutes from us and the four doctors in our pediatric practice in Essex, CT were all Chief Residents of Pediatrics at Yale and taught at Yale Children's Hospital and they ALL dropped the ball on us, FOR MONTHS!!!! So not every doctor is perfect.....YOU the parent have to speak up.

xojillian

 

We were unable to avoid helmets for our boys despite months of repositioning and other measures. Some babies just have softer heads than others. If your doctor is not concerned then I would buy a sleep positioner to promote side sleeping, do tummy time as much as possible (even if it's just 3 min. after every diaper change until they get comfortable with it), and as soon as your baby can use a Jolly Jumper, exersaucer, and/or Bumbo, I'd work toward having her OFF of her head just about every waking moment. From about 4 to 7 months my sons were only ever on their heads for diaper changes. We started with helmets at 7 months. Now they're coming up for 9 months and I can see a difference. Good luck!

 

Please know that plagio and tort do not always go hand in hand. It is 100% possible to have one condition without the other.

I agree that some pediatrician's can be lax about these things but I went through this with Kyle 6 years ago completely on the recommendation of my ped. We noticed it almost immediately upon birth basically so she kept a watchful eye. Kyle was wearing his helmet at 4 months which is pretty much the earliest a child can be treated. This was all because of my ped so please don't think that all peds are relaxed about it. If yours is mentioning it at 2 months then I don't think I would put her in the relaxed category but of course only you know for sure.

Some things I would ask you to evaluate the condition a little.......if you look straight down on her head and draw an imaginary line from ear to ear, is the line straight? If you hold her up to a mirror, are her eyes straight? Is her mouth straight? Sometimes plagio can entail more than just a flat spot in the back and often times if there are asymetries in the facial features positioning alone will not correct the problem.

But, I digress because I have not even answered your very simple questions........Yes, I had a baby with a flat spot.........no it did not correct with mobility because we had already corrected the problem using a helmet.........potential things you could do include rotating her position in the crib while also moving any items she might look at, move her car seat, so that when she is looking out the window her head will not be resting on the flat spot. You could also try to keep her off her back as much as possible, which can be quite difficult when you have a baby who hates tummy time but remember eve laying on someone's chest can be considered tummy time since the weight is not on the head. None of these suggestions will necessarily correct the condition, but hopefully these measures might keep it from worsening.

 

Great article in the Journal of the Academy of Pediatrics about Multiples and the incidence of Torticollis and Plagiocephaly (neck tightening/flat head).

http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/...t/full/109/1/19

Worth noting, clearly emphasizes the importance of physical therapy evaluation, how prevalent it is in twins and higher order multiples and how EARLY intervention is key!

 

One of my girls had it too ... positional plagiocephaly. She had torticollis (tight neck muscles) so would only turn her head one way. We had to stretch the neck muscles, too. Since they were tight on her it really hurt her and she screamed in pain when I did it ... oh my goodness, I would just want to cry with her. She would look at me with these huge eyes like "WHY are you doing this to me Mommy?" I did try to position her head the other way most of the time ... if she was sleeping ... I let her sleep however she would (the girl hates to sleep!) If she was awake ... I always sat where she would have to turn the way I wanted so that she could see me. Or whatever she was interested in (a toy, the TV) ... I made it so that she had to turn the other way ... I would even pull up the ottoman right beside her if she was lying on the ground or in her bouncy so that there was absolutely NOTHING to look at the other way. It eventually went away on its own. Also, do as much tummy time as she and you can stand.

 

we had the same issue (plagio only) at Kellen's 4 mo appt - by the 6 mo appt, he was looking a lot (though not entirely) better. We were just very vigilent about making sure Kellen was never let to sleep on his flat spot.

We asked about the helmet. It's very $$$$. And our pedi said the latest research indicates that it provides no more of a benefit than does doing exactly what we've done and will continue to do.

good luck!

 

QUOTE
We asked about the helmet. It's very $$$$. And our pedi said the latest research indicates that it provides no more of a benefit than does doing exactly what we've done and will continue to do.


The $$ are completely relative to insurance, we did not pay one penny for any of our plagio experience. No copay for any appointment, nothing for the helmet......there was no charge to us for anything.

In regards to the research, I believe that is true in certain cases but not all. It is tough to make blanket statements like that...........the most important things to evaluate are if the condition happened before birth (inutero) or after birth (positional) and like I mentioned in my above post about other issues in addition to the flat spot in the back. Often times with inutero cases it is difficult (if even possible) to adjust the head shape with positioning alone because the head never formed correctly from the start...............with conditions where the ears/eyes/mouth/forehead are misaligned it is also more difficult to correct with positioning alone (not allowing pressure on the back of the head will not move ears to their correct position for example).

So, while the statement I quoted may be true for some cases it is not necessarily true for all cases so please be mindful of generalizations.

 

QUOTE(kj2racing @ Nov 26 2007, 07:46 AM) [snapback]508700[/snapback]
The $$ are completely relative to insurance, we did not pay one penny for any of our plagio experience. No copay for any appointment, nothing for the helmet......there was no charge to us for anything.

In regards to the research, I believe that is true in certain cases but not all. It is tough to make blanket statements like that...........the most important things to evaluate are if the condition happened before birth (inutero) or after birth (positional) and like I mentioned in my above post about other issues in addition to the flat spot in the back. Often times with inutero cases it is difficult (if even possible) to adjust the head shape with positioning alone because the head never formed correctly from the start...............with conditions where the ears/eyes/mouth/forehead are misaligned it is also more difficult to correct with positioning alone (not allowing pressure on the back of the head will not move ears to their correct position for example).

So, while the statement I quoted may be true for some cases it is not necessarily true for all cases so please be mindful of generalizations.


I'm not saying you should accept any medical information without critical thought, but I don't think it's fair to call this new information a generalization or blanket statement - it's new research, the findings of which should not be casually dismissed and the details of which you'd have to discuss with a trusted doctor to fully analyze. I guess you'd have to read the actual studies to find out more info re: the subjects studied and the extent of their plagio, but i choose to defer to our pedi's understanding of it, since that is what she gets paid to do and since it is in-line w/our experience: that is, helmets have not been medically proven to have a better effect than constant, vigilant repositioning. Maybe that news will bother the parents whose children were helmented, but you do the best you can with the info available at the time . . . For us, personally, not helmeting was a good decision. And although our ins would've paid for it, why should ANYONE pay for it, if repositioning can work just as well? We certainly didn't want Kellen in a helmet, if we could avoid it, and were willing to do the extra work necessary to avoid it (that means even waking up in the middle of the night to move him, as necessary). In his case, repositioning has had a dramatic effect in just 2 months and i am confident another few months will do wonders so long as we keep up our constant efforts to reposition his head. i know repositioning also worked well for several others on this website. So, the success stories are out here!

Recognize that medical information can, and frequently does, change - the tide may be turning and helmets, which is what most practitioners had been recommending, may no longer be the first therapy to consider. Before you agree to helmet, consider that at least some new research suggests that it MAY not be worthwhile. The research to which our pedi referred should be considered a recent development in this area and one worth discussing with your own pediatrician before a final informed decision is made re: treatment.

HTH - and good luck with your decision.

 

I believe they are generalizations and blanket statements. QUOTE
In regards to the research, I believe that is true in certain cases but not all.
Ask anyone who I have helped through the saga of having a child with a flat head and ask them if I told them they absolutely needed a helmet just because my child did...........you will certainly find that I am supportive of no child ever needing a helmet and if at all possible to avoid it..................but....................there are cases where it can't be avoided and as I stated in my previous posts there are additional considerations to add to the picture than merely a flat spot on the back of the head. I stand by my statement that ears can not be moved with positioning.............if the new research says they can I would be very interested in learning how to do that myself.


QUOTE
Maybe that news will bother the parents whose children were helmented,

I doubt it since most parents of children who were helmeted would do anything to help another parent to not travel the same road.....please don't think I am bothered by this news..........I certainly would love to read more but I would also hate for someone reading this who has concerns to think 'oh, ok new research says treating the issue medically is no more effective than what I am doing at home' which is not necessarily true. Maybe the research shows for your child there is no treatment that would be more effective than what you are already doing and for that I am thrilled for you. There is nothing better than knowing that what you are doing for your child is working..............even if that means making the decision to helmet if necessary and watching the improvement.

Kyle's ears were straight, forehead round, mouth straight, flat spot corrected at 7 months..........not all of these things could have been corrected with positioning by the time he was 7 months old.

I see lots of children out there in the world with head issues and it makes me sad to know that they might not have had doctors educated in these kinds of things and if the shape issues were noticed they were probably told their hair will hide it..................when they start crawling it will fix itself...............then I see children who are upwards of 1 year old wearing helmets because someone finally realized they needed help. All of these situations can be avoided when addressed properly and I am thrilled to hear gilrs! ped sounds very informed. Maybe you could provide her with additional information and details on how you were able to be QUOTE
vigilent about making sure Kellen was never let to sleep on his flat spot.

 

QUOTE
but I would also hate for someone reading this who has concerns to think 'oh, ok new research says treating the issue medically is no more effective than what I am doing at home' which is not necessarily true. Maybe the research shows for your child there is no treatment that would be more effective than what you are already doing and for that I am thrilled for you. There is nothing better than knowing that what you are doing for your child is working..............even if that means making the decision to helmet if necessary and watching the improvement.

Kyle's ears were straight, forehead round, mouth straight, flat spot corrected at 7 months..........not all of these things could have been corrected with positioning by the time he was 7 months old.

I see lots of children out there in the world with head issues and it makes me sad to know that they might not have had doctors educated in these kinds of things and if the shape issues were noticed they were probably told their hair will hide it..................when they start crawling it will fix itself...............then I see children who are upwards of 1 year old wearing helmets because someone finally realized they needed help. All of these situations can be avoided when addressed properly and I am thrilled to hear gilrs! ped sounds very informed. Maybe you could provide her with additional information and details on how you were able to be


My thoughts exactly!

 

I can see the helmets working on my boys. I didn't see any improvement with sleep positioners, tummy time, exercises, physio, etc. The spent 90% of their awake time OFF of their flat spots for 4 months and we didn't see improvement. We've had helmets for almost 8 weeks and I can see them working. I was not confident their heads would improve without helmets - I don't care what the latest research says.