No, we are not starting him in hockey at the ripe age of 6 months. And no, he does not fall over and hit his head a lot. ;)
Here's the scoop - because I know I am going to get a MILLION questions. In a nutshell, he has a flat spot on the back of his head and this is to help correct it. If you didn't already know, babies have soft heads. They are also "required" to sleep on their backs for safety reasons since the rise of S.I.D.S. (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome) in the early 90's. The government or some other powerful group of pediatric people, I don't know who, started the "Back to Sleep" campaign at that time, where they promoted the importance of placing your baby on his/her back when they slept. As a consequence, there was a significant rise in the flattening on the back of babies' heads.
When Bentley was just a wee-lil guy we noticed a small flat spot on one side of his head so we started placing him a different way when he slept in order to help fix it. At his 4 month appointment (which is the age where a flat spot usually "peaks") our pediatrician recommended that we have it checked to see if he would need a helmet to help fix it - she didn't think so but we headed to Children's Hospital to see their head plastic surgeon. Between our pediatrician and the plastic surgeon they agreed that Bentley's little flat spot was very mild and it was up to us if we wanted to have a helmet made for him. Flat spots can self-correct as a baby's head grows but there is no way to be sure. The idea of the helmet is that it's flexible enough that his head will still grow but there is a spot hollowed out in the back/inside where it will allow his head to expand more & the flat spot to fill in. The ONLY issue with a flat spot is cosmetic. We decided to move forward with it ~ he'll barely notice the helmet and won't remember it (except for pics!!) but we didn't want him to be in high school and if it didn't self-correct have him be upset with us for not fixing it when he was a baby! It's most easily corrected between 4 and 6 1/2 months, when they have a rapid growth spurt. So, off to the brace shop at Children's to have him fitted, where we found out his degree of "mis-shapenness" (that is my term...not medical terms...hehe) was only 8 mm and they have some kids with up to 20 mm!!! Easy peasy for us. OH, and it's actually very common.
Yesterday I took the little guy for his big day ~ to pick up his new "accessory." Here he is modeling his un-helmeted head before we left (thanks, Auntie Nicole for this shirt!) ...
Here we are waiting for his helmet to be adjusted and fitted...
There was lots of waiting, and he was still very happy...
Andddddddddddddddd...TA DAAAAAAAAAAAA...ready for the ride home after lots of waiting and fitting...
Of course I had to take some pics when we got home, too...
So, there you have it. He will wear his little helmet for the majority of the day for at least a couple of months. I'll take him every two weeks to be checked and re-fitted until they feel his lil dome-piece is as perfect as can be. Other than a sweaty head he's already doing very well with it. And again, it's only cosmetic and is very common. But it will probably come in handy for us these days while he's learning to sit up and becoming more mobile!!
OH, and yes, it does have skulls and crossbones on it. ;)
~E
Love the skull and crossbones- what a cutie pie! Just like his mom, he loves to accessorize ;)
ReplyDeleteI know, I can't help it! LOL
ReplyDeleteHi! I just found your blog when I was searching for images of the Boston Band. I have a quick question for you. My daughter has torticollis and plagiocephaly. We are going to see the plastic surgeon at Children's in Boston next week to discuss a helmet. My question is this: when you went to the plastic surgeon, did you go straight from there to get fitted for the helmet or did you have to make a separate appt for that? I'm trying to figure out how all of this is going to work. Thanks so much!!
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