Helmet?

So I took my boys to their 4 month appointment on Friday and our pedi wants Carter to go to a plastic surgeon. He believes that he may need a helmet for purposes of shaping his head b/c he has a pretty bad flat spot.

If he needs a helmet, how many weeks/months do they usually have to wear them and how many hours in the day.

 

You should PM sharerc as she got a helmet for one of her DDs and got positive results.

I hope things are resolved soon. KUP & GL!

 

Hi! This is my first post. I usually just hop on and read the posts for ideas and reassurance and I saw your post. We had the same thing occur at our 4 months appointment. We went to the plastic surgeon last week and he concurred that Luke (now 6 months, 5 months corrected age) has to wear a helmet. I was very upset. It is just hard to swallow I guess. You dont want to see your cute little one crawling around in a helmet. I know it is selfish but he just will not look like himself and I really am not looking forward to all of the questions when we are out and about. Anyways, he has to wear it until he is one. He has not been fit for it yet so by the time he gets it he will probably wear it for 5 months. So I am looking at it like it is 5 months for the rest of his life. There are so many worse things that can happen and I know that. It is just hard because you dont want them to be uncomfortable. The Dr. said Luke's case is moderate. There is a chance it iwll self correct but what if it doesnt? Then he will be getting made fun of in grade school for a funny shaped head. So we are going thru with it.

 

Oh and he is suppposed to wear it 24/7 unelss he is bathing. I asked him about swimming and he said he could take it off while in the pool too.

I just keep thinking... it could be worse!

 

The earlier you correct it, the shorter he will need to wear it. My DD got hers a few days shy of 6 months and wore it for exactly 8 weeks. She had a flat spot on the back of her head, not too severe. Actually her pediatrician did not recommend that we see a specialist for it. But we were concerned and went anyway. The looks you get from people aren't fun but it really didn't get to me much. We painted my DD's helmet up so it was so cute. People always commented on it. I'll try and find our before and after pics and post the link so you can see the changes. And my DD wore her helmet about 23.5 hours. We took it off of her to get a bath and put it right back on her.

 

http://www.twinstuff.com/forum/index.php?s...3&hl=helmet Here is the thread with Mallory's before and after pictures. You can see that the back of her head actually had indentation from the flatspot and how the bones had closed. We are still very glad that we did the helmet. Her head is just perfect! A rather expensive perfect!

 

Here is a picture of how it was painted. You can't see it well, but it had a rhinestone 'M' on the front. DH painted it. http://s148.photobucket.com/albums/s4/shar...=Picture300.jpg

Edited to add:
Cranial Technologies is the company we used. We had an option of only 2 places in the DFW area. We had not heard great things about the other place. It was significantly cheaper ($1200). But I had heard several stories about kids' heads getting messed up there and having to go to Cranial Tech to get it fixed again. Not worth the savings in money IMO. We paid $3300 out of pocket. Our insurance didn't cover a dime.

 

My DS was put in a helmet at 4 months. He wore it 23 hours a day for 2 months and looks great! It totally corrected his flat spot and was even kind of cute on him. I'm putting it in the attic in his baby box!

 

Mine wore them from 7-14 months and only one boy got full correction (the less severe of the two). We had to stop because they learned how to remove them and wouldn't leave them on. YES, earlier is better! Still, we got enough out of it that it was worth all of the trouble and $.

Also, if anyone gave us any looks, I didn't notice. I had people ask about the helmets but nobody was rude at all. My only problem was that Trevor smacked me in the face with his and cracked one of my front teeth. Oh, and the helmets were pretty nice to have during the early climbing phase :good:

 

Ds got his helmet today! He has moderate plagio. and while the pedi. said we didn't need one, we got one anyway after meeting with a couple plastic surgeons. I would love to hear more stories and see pics of other babies in helmets. He looks darn cute in it. . . like a baby hockey player!