"Quasimodo," I laughed, but I was unable to mask the worry. I imagined my son in the bell tower, tortured by loneliness, his head keeping him from having a normal, full life. Hidden away because of his deformity.
"The doctor said it would round out," my husband continued. "It hasn't. We should ask again at his four month appointment."
We did. LJ was diagnosed with plagiocephaly. I had no idea what that was, but it sounded really scary. What would happen? Would we have to have his head operated on? How did he get it? Was it serious?
My son was 5 weeks early into this world. My preeclampsia meant that he had to come out quick! With that early arrival comes a skull that is softer and not as fully formed as a full term baby. Combine that with the "back to sleep" campaign that's all the rage and you'll likely see a flat head on your baby.
I don't mean to sound like I'm against "back to sleep." It has reduced the number of babies dying from SIDS each year. That's a really good thing. However, nobody told me when I was in the hospital about the possibility of flat head because my baby was a preemie.
In fact, since the "back to sleep" campaign, the number of babies with plagiocephaly (flat head) has increased from .3% to 10%. That's a huge jump. Right now, 1 in every 10 babies is diagnosed with plagiocephaly.
How is it prevented? Well, it's not that easily prevented, especially if you have a preemie, because babies need a lot of sleep to grow, they are going to spend quite a lot of time on their backs. There are some things you can do to help lessen the chances for your baby's head to get flat.
1. Rotate sleep positions. Put his head down facing right one evening, the next evening, put him facing left.
2. Switch nursing/bottle feeding sides. This is tough to do. I never quite got the hang of it, because he never felt good on my right arm. If you can do it, though, switch him from each side so he gets used to turning his head both ways.
3. Tummy time, and lots of it! My doctor said 15 minutes a day of tummy time. I honestly don't think that's really enough. With my first baby, the 15 minutes a day definitely wasn't. With the second baby, when he wasn't on his tummy on the floor, I had him lie on my chest.
4. Limit activities in swings, bouncer seats, and car seats. Oh, this one was hard. It was overwhelming to have a newborn, especially because I wanted to do many things like laundry, cooking, cleaning, and baby was ALWAYS in the way. A swing or bouncer was a convenient way to amuse him while I did what I needed to do. With the second child, however, I let my husband and brother-in-law help me do stuff around the house while I spent time with the baby. If you can do that great. If not... see number 5...
5. Babywear. You can do this many ways! I had an Ergo with the first baby and a cheap, stretchy Infantino with the second baby. First baby never got used to babywearing because I didn't do it that often. Second baby is much happier riding in the Ergo because I did it a lot when he was tiny.
So what happens if you fail to do the above, or you do and your baby's head is STILL flat?
It wasn't so simple. We took him to a neurologist at Connecticut Children's Medical Center, and she flatly (har har) told us that his head wasn't bad enough for surgery, and it was cosmetic. "Reposition," she said, "And it'll go back to normal."
It sounds easy to do, but at 5 months, most babies are rolling all over the place. At least TJ is. LJ, however, was a preemie and not quite adjusted, so he wasn't rolling yet. It worked for a month. We rolled up a receiving blanket and placed it behind the flat part of his head, pushing his head onto the pointy end. We did this for all naps. We didn't do it at night because we were still worried about SIDS. He spent lots of time on his tummy. But at 7 months, he started crawling and repositioning wasn't doing anything anymore.
I went to see the pediatrician, and she said that studies had shown that not addressing plagiocephaly can cause later health issues, believe it or not. LJ's frequent ear infections could have been from the fact that the internal tubes could not drain properly like in normal babies. He could, later in life, have issues with his teeth due to his jaw being slightly out of alignment. She said this made it medically necessary for him to get a helmet, which meant it would be covered under insurance, especially since repositioning had failed.
We went to Cranial Technologies in Madison, CT. They were excellent. This really interesting machine measured LJ's head and they were able to make a helmet for him from the resulting 3D images.
We were very concerned about his ability to adjust with the helmet. Cranial Tech told us we shouldn't be worried, the babies really get used to it very quickly. They were right. LJ adjusted to his helmet within a couple of weeks. He wore it from about 8 1/2 months until he was a year old, and barely noticed it.
Each night, we cleaned it with alcohol wipes and left it off for an hour. And each week, we went back to Cranial Tech and they adjusted the helmet so it would continue to reshape his head.
In the end, it did a lot of good. His head was almost completely round. I didn't have to worry about him being teased for his deformity! And believe it or not, he only got one more ear infection after he had the helmet off (prior to that, he had ear infections at least every 6 weeks).
Questions about my experience? Feel free to post below.
1. Images, data and video from Cranial Technologies, http://www.cranialtech.com/my-babys-head-shape/what-is-plagiocephaly/
2. Beyond Cosmetic Concerns: Functional Deficits Associated with Deformational Plagiocephaly, Phil Stevens, MEd, CPO, FAAOP http://www.oandp.com/articles/2012-04_02.asp
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