My Captain America Baby

For those of you who haven't read my guest post over at Becky's site, about a month ago Miles was officially diagnosed with Plagiocephaly, or flat head syndrome. Plagiocephaly is becoming more and more common as parents are encouraged to keep their babies sleeping on their backs. For Miles, he had a growth restriction in the womb and was born very small, this led him to Torticollis and Torticollis often leads to Plagiocephaly.  For those of you who have never dealt with these things, these terms are probably new to you.

Miles was diagnosed with Torticollis at his 4 month appointment. He was favoring one side, not enjoying tummy time at all, not rolling over and not turning his head easily. He immediately started physical therapy. During all this time we knew his head was a little flat, but as most babies are at this point, we waited and monitored it. At one of his visits with his physical therapist she recommended we get a scan. We did and he was diagnosed with moderate Plagiocephaly. His symmetry was actually ok and would probably improve to the normal range on its own, but his head was a little wider than they would like the ratio to be. So decision made, our son was going to be rocking a helmet.

He has now had his helmet on for 2 weeks, overall it has been a pretty smooth transition. It started out great, but as of recently he has seemed bothered by it and we are now going on 2 nights of rough sleep, but he had his first adjustment yesterday and hopefully that made it a little more comfortable for him again. You can already see improvements to his head, it is really quite amazing.

We have taken him all over with his helmet, ballet, the park, the store, dinners, etc. Do people stare? Of course they do. Have people asked some ridiculous questions. Yes, they have. Do I understand? Somewhat, I mean I probably would have been clueless a few years ago too, but hello, a helmet isn't going to do anything for your brain people, he doesn't have anything wrong with his brain (thank God).

A lot of people with babies who have Plagiocephaly think they did something wrong or that it is their fault. As a mom of 2 kids who I have done everything exactly the same with, I can tell you that is not true. For Miles, he had a condition that led to this, but even if your baby didn't, you are not at fault. Everyone today pushes parents to keep their babies on their back while sleeping and let's face it, most babies sleep a lot in the beginning. SIDS is a very real and scary thing and the #1 prevention for it is to keep babies on their backs. Backs. Backs. Backs.  Well, with this, comes other things like plagiocephaly. Babies heads are soft in the beginning, so keeping them on their backs makes their little heads flat. Most will improve on their own as they get increased tummy time and start sitting up, but others need some help and these very expensive helmets seem to do the trick.

A new fashion trend? You betcha! If you haven't heard, helmets are all the rage, I mean just ask Captain America...