Helmet

I decided to redo the post about the helmet story. I actually did have part of it saved, so the first part is what I wrote a few days ago...

So way back when Pierce was 2 months old, I told you that because he had torticollis, his head was a little flat on one side. At his 2 month checkup the doctor told us that when he was 4 months old, we could get him evaluated to see if he needed to wear a helmet. Well, his head improved immensely over those next couple of months, partially because the torticollis improved and partially because we worked hard to not let him spend too much time on one side of his head. However, his head was still a slightly flattened on one side.

Last week I took him to Cincinnati Children's Hospital to be evaluated. I didn't realize until that morning when I read the information letter that it would be a 2-3 hour ordeal. First they gave us an orientation about plagiocephaly (flatheadedness) and torticollis. It would have been useful information about 6 months ago, but by now it's everything I've already learned on my own. I was thinking the whole time...can you please just measure my kid's head so we can go home? I was a little embarrassed though. When we got there, it was Pierce's nap time. Hoping that he would fall asleep, I left him in his carseat and popped it into the stroller. When we got to the meeting and I saw that he wasn't going to fall asleep, I started taking him out. The lady conducting the meeting said "Oh, I'm glad you're taking him out. I was going to give you a hard time." Most of the meeting was spent talking about not leaving babies in their carseats. I found out later that everyone else brought their babies in with carseats too, but they just left them in another location, and since I arrived late, I didn't know it.

After the orientation, we were seen one at a time. Since I was the last one there, I was the last one to get called back. A nurse came to see us first and measured Pierce. He was 18 lbs 2 oz and 26 in long according to her. He was 26.5 in at his 4 month check up, so she obviously did something wrong. After she left, another lady came in to ask questions. She thought Pierce was so serious. We actually get that a lot from people when we take him out in public. He fell asleep right after she left, and finally the specialist came to measure his head. I was starving at this point. She said his head was 5 mm off. They said, in the orientation, that less than 3 mm is slight, and 12-15 is moderate. I guess that makes 5 mm minor plagiocephaly. They recommend going the helmet route if it's at least 10 mm. She said to tell Brock that as far as she's concerned, his head is perfect.

Even though it took 3 hours to find that out, I'm glad we went so we won't have to worry about it anymore. (Although I think Brock is still a little concerned.) The growth chart that they showed us gives some hope that his head will round out even more. Even though the fastest growth is during the first few months, his head is still growing fairly quickly until 10-12 months old when it slows down a lot more. Since he spends so much time on his tummy now and the torticollis has been corrected, they didn't see any reason to worry about it so I don't either.

I wish I would have known what I know now in the beginning. I feel like we did the best we could and we caught it early on, but there are still a few things I would have done differently. The main thing is more tummy time. I wish I hadn't been so worried about SIDS and put him on his tummy more. I also wish we would have taken him out of his carseat more when we went out in public. Brock was good at doing that, but I usually left him in there so I could have my hands free. I don't know if those changes would have made much of a difference since he had the problem with his neck from birth, but I'll definitely be more careful in the future now that I know more about it.