Anyone Have a Baby with Torticollis?

B. -
Ask LOTS of questions before starting treatment. After his 2-month checkup, we treated my son, gently at home not therapy, for a problem where he always had his head turned to the right shoulder, so the pediatrician had me trying to talk to him from the left, show him things from the left, nurse him facing left, etc. - and then we found out at his 4 month check-up that he had a cataract in his left eye and couldn't see around it - so no amount of stimulation on the left was going to change that. Makes me sad just thinking about wasted time and his frustration level, but he is way better now. Ask your pediatrician to thoroughly examine everything before just saying it is torticollis.
Blessings on your sweet baby! He will do great and you will too!
~ S.
SAHM of 4, ages 14, 10, 8, and 4

Hi B.,
I am a pediatric occupational therapist and have seen little ones with torticollis. It sounds likely that is what it is, however, the woman who mentioned vision has a valid point - vision drives our movement and positioning. I just want to be sure you are aware that you can recieve free (I think it may be on a sliding pay scale now) therapy sevices through Early Childhood Intervention services for Denton County and they come to your home. Their website is: www.itipnt.org
I worked in ECI years ago and often times pediatricians don't tell their patients about it and they provide great services!

Good luck to you and your litte one! Feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

Way to go on being a "natural" mama! :) That certainly gives your sweet baby every advantage!

-Krystal

One of my twin boys has torticollis (we noticed something around 3-4 mos.), it sounds like that might be what it is. It is when muscles in the neck are tight and make it hard for him to rotate his head/neck and it can make him hold his head crooked. You should take him in to see your ped. and then he/she can refer you on if that is what it is. If it is torticollis, then depending on the severity, you may have to take him regularly to physical therapy (we've been going twice a week for the last month) and also do stretches with him at home. One thing I've been told is the sooner you get him started, the easier it will be to fix the problem. I'm not sure where in Denton you are, but we see Kristen McConnell at Orthopedia Physical Therapy in Flower Mound and she does great with our little guy. Good luck!

You might consider that it could be a vision problem - 2 of my 3 kids have a "lazy eye" that we are working on correcting. Our pediatric opthamologist (sp?) has told us about another common problem involving head tilting and eye alignment. I'd get into your pediatrician asap to get him looked at. We also live in Denton - our pediatrician is David Goff. Take him to the pediatrician first to get him diagnosed, first!

My daughter is 3 now but at 3 months old she was diagnosed with torticollis. I was very lucky that it was caught at such a young age by her peditrician. We were referred to The Baylor House of Medicine in Coppell. It was possibly going to take 1 year for my daughter to go through physical therapy but it only lasted about 3 months and she was completely fine. The doctor said they can develope this as early in the womb and you just don't catch it because most people don't know what to look for. If you need additional information please feel free to email me at ____@____.com and I will give you all the information I can.

I dont know about any place in denton, but maybe you can ask your doctor. I have twins that were born with low muscle tone and we took then to Our Childrens house in Grapevine at baylor hospital. They did the initial evaluation and then therapy every week. If he does have torticollis they can do therapy and teach you exercises. The earlier the better though.