Flat Spots & Orthopedic Helmets

Well I have twin daughters who in ureto were very cramped for space and as a result 1 of my daughters had a very miss-shapen head! I was very concerned about this and when I visted my daughters peditrician she brushed it off and told me in a few months it would get better. I think I f she would have been an only child I would have done just that but because she was a twin I had a constant compairson of what it should look like at 5 months we got a referal to a specialist and he recomended a helmet for my daughter my husband and I were worried at first because of the distance to dr. apt (Oakland Ca) and the effect it would have on her self-estem I was more worried about what others would think or say to her like "ohhh whats wrong with her haed" or "poor baby" I didnt want her to pick up on that....but all my worries were unfounded and we had the helmet on for omly 6 months she was very good with not fussing about it and it really didnt seem to bother her she is now 2 1/2 and her head is the perfect shape just like her sisters, what I learned from this whole experiance is that children are very resiliant and can get through almost more than we as moms can!!!! Hope everything works out well and If your going to the same place I went you will have a great experiance the dr. is very sweet and effeciant

Please have it checked. Most flat spots are simply plagiocephaly and can be fixed easily with a helmet. My daughter's was actually craniosynostosis, an actual bone malformation (fusion of the sutures) requiring major surgery. Scary but 100% fixable. Today she is beautiful and you would never know any of it happened. But, should we not have pushed to get a neurologist, there could have been any number of problems as she continued to grow (ear displacement, eye displacement/blindness/ jaw dislocation). Considering what we went through, a helmet for a few months is easy. Push to have your son's head checked by a neurologist also. You can only truly tell the difference between cranio and plagio with a CAT scan, but a trained eye can usually tell and hopefully save you from invasive diagnostics. I had three pediatricians miss my daughter's condition, even though I pointed it out to them. It wasn't until I finally got a neuro that we found out the real problem. But the condition is getting more "press" and more and more doctors are becoming aware of it.

I don't want to scare you, cranio is rare and chances of your son having it are slim. However, better safe than sorry. And it is 100% fixable, so finding out early is the best course of action. Good luck and let us know how he is doing.

Find a good chiropractor and have him adjusted. My son had this when he was born and it was corrected very easily with some adjustments from our awesome chiropractor.

At 4mos our Kaiser Pedi referred us to the Craniofacial Plastic Surgeon who then referred us outside Kaiser to CIRS for measurement scans and helmet fittings. DS1 wore the helmet from age 6mos to 12mos and went from over 20mm "off" (the normal range is 0-6mm) to only 3mm. He also received physical therapy through Kaiser for the torticollis which caused the plagiocephaly. We loved our 6mos with Amy at CIRS and as a result of our openness to talk about the helmet another baby in our playgroup got a helment and a subsequent sibling received PT treatment for his torticollis so early that they didn't need the helmet at all. Please don't put off getting the evaluation and measurements... wthout Kaiser the cost of the evaluation (around $90 in 2004) is well worth the investment and peace of mind.

Hi A.
I'm just going thru this myself!! My son is 5mos and we just placed him on a orthosis. Im going thru a place call CIRS there in Palo Alto ####-###-####. Great guys and they know what they are doing. They are affiliated with Stanford and The Packard Foundation.
It turns out that yes my sons right ear has been pushed forward. the flat spot is not so bad only 11.6mm but they consider orthosis on babies over 10mm. This is a great age to do this...the down side is that unless you have Kaiser, the insurance companies won't pay for this or it will take some back and forth to get them to pay $2800.00.
Hope this helps and good luck!! A

My son wore a helmet and I am so so happy that I made the decision to do it. He didn't seem to have any problem with his head at birth except that he liked to only look to the right. Eventually his face became quite asymetrical. He got it put on at 6 months and wore it for about 4 1/2 months. It definitely made a difference and it was worth it. My insurance even paid for all of it except $300. I took my son to Cranial Therapies in Toluca Lake, right near West Hollywood. They are very professional and their staff are extremely well trained.

The best advice I got from other mothers when I was deciding whether or not to do the helmet, was that if I was even thinking about it I should just do it. I spoke with several women whose doctors said their child would grow out of it but they didn't totally grow out of it and the moms really wish they had done it.

I painted my son's helmet myself with some paint from Michael's (Cranial Therapies gives you directions on how to do it) and had someone print some custom stickers that I added. The whole thing cost about $15 and it was so cute. I secretly loved all the attention my son got because of it. But you do get some funny questions.

Well, you've gotten alot of lengthy responses, so I'll quit now. But I surely recommend a custom-fit helmet (some are not) and highly recommend Cranial Therapies. You can find them online or message me back if you have any questions. Good luck!

My son was also treated at CIRS (we had Bob) for a flat spot. The sooner you start, the better.My son wore it for 6 months and definitely improved.

Go to a crano-sacral chiropracter. If you are in the Santa Cruz area I recommend Dr. Sylvia Skefich
Chiropractic Office Address:
920 41st Ave, #G
Santa Cruz, CA 95062
ph: ###-###-####
www.vital-you.com/index.html

PS if you don't live here it is worth the trip to see Sylvia.

This works. The cranial bones are flexible and can be alligned. It is a painless, non-invasive proceedure. And sublte. TRY THIS, It is not difficult to allign a 4 month old. Don't let the Medical Doctors scare you. Go to a healer 1st!
GOOD LUCK,
Gale

This condition is very common now as parents, afraid of the risk of SIDS, only lay their newborns down on their backs to sleep. The bones of the head are soft and not yet fused, and placing a newborn in one position for sleep (and newborns spend MOST of their time sleeping and laying down) very easily causes flat spots. This practice can sometimes cause malformations in the face and forehead as the brain pushes forward and grows forward and out as opposed to a general all over growth.
You have to lay the baby on his sides just as much as he lays on his back - rotating him like you would, say, a baked potato so that it doesn't burn or cook to quickly in one particular spot. Orthopedic helmets to reshape the head are common, and generally little cost to you as long as you have medical insurance. However, you MUST start putting that baby down to sleep on his side with the use of rolled up blankets or sleep positioner, or the helmet will do no good and when it comes off, his head will become flat again.

HI A.,
My son, who is now 8, is a twin. He was born with a moderate flat spot on the back of his head. Plagiocephaly,as it's medically known, can be cause the ear and forward to push forward. Another concern is jaw issue later in life. While his pediatrician said he might grow out of it, I pushed to see a cranial facial specialist. We had a wonderful physician at Stanford, who put my son in a helmet.

The course of treatment and length in a helmet depends on the age of the child. We didn't get started until he was almost 9 mos. At your son's age he could be in and out in as little as 6 weeks, depending on the degre. It took us almost 6 mos.
The helmets are custom created from a cast taken on your son's head. They must wear the helmet 23 hours a day (yes, they sleep in it). In the summer, he will be sweaty!

I can say that the results were very noticable. His ears (when looking down at the top of his head from above) and forehead realigned. He still has a small flat spot, but it will only be noticeable if he's bald, when he's old!

If you wait until the baby is a year or older, the plates in the skull fuse and only surgery can correct it.
Hope this helps.
regards,
A.

My sister-in-law did have the same diagnosis for her second son, and he wore a helmet for a few months. I think he was about a year old at the time. I don't know about the medical experience, but the experience I thought I could share was how he was perceived in the market and the playground.

As I'm sure you've considered, a child wearing a such a helmet is 'different' from other children, and my sister-in-law found that she had to make an extra effort to talk to other mothers in their play group, and to speak directly, with a big smile, to anyone in the market who stared or asked their moms "why is that boy wearing that thing?". Once she did that, she found that it made other children feel more at ease around her son. (see a discussion from a few days ago about talking to our kids about other kids who are 'different')

But the genius thing she did was have the helmet painted (non-toxic paints of course)! An artist she knew painted it to look like a prince's crown, and that made everyone who looked at her son smile. So he never felt awkward.

Now that I think of it, it's like a cast - have your family sign it, put stickers on it, draw on it, personalize it! Make it a little more fun, and the time he has to wear the helmet will go by more quickly.