What in the world is plagiocepahly (flat head syndrome)??

Doctors are seeing more and more cases of positional plagiocephaly. Today, it affects one in 60 babies, compared with one in 300 in 1974. Parents typically notice that their baby has an oddly shaped head with a flat spot on the back or one side and that their child's facial features or ears are asymmetrical.

"While plagiocephaly is not life-threatening and doesn't affect brain development, it can lead to improper skull growth and permanently affect the symmetry of a child's face if it isn't treated properly," explains John Persing, M.D., a craniofacial surgeon at Yale–New Haven Hospital, in Connecticut.

Some infants are born with plagiocephaly because of cramped quarters or positioning in the uterus, while others develop it owing to torticollis, a tightening on one side of the neck muscles that causes a baby to favor looking in one direction over the other. Experts believe that the recent jump in cases, however, is the result of the "Back to Sleep" campaign introduced in the 1990s to reduce the risk of sudden infant death syndrome. While this program—which encourages parents to put their babies to sleep on their back rather than their stomach—has been widely credited with cutting the number of SIDS deaths by 40 percent, it's also led to an unfortunate side effect: plagiocephaly. Since an infant's skull is soft, it can easily be molded by external pressure from a firm mattress.

The great news for us is that this is completely treatable and Ian should go on to live a normal life with no problems resulting from it!

How do we fix it? Ian will wear a cranial helmet 23 hours per day for at least 3 months. We will take it off for 1 hour per day to give him a bath and give him a little of play time. The helmet does not hurt him, but it just might be uncomfortable for a little bit while he's getting used to it. It essentially works by "holding" in the parts of his head that they don't want to grow, and allowing room in the helmet to encourage growth in other parts. His helmet will have to be adjusted approximately every 2 weeks to make sure the fit is good and to account for growth, etc. After the 3 months, we'll return to Ian's neurosurgeon for an evaluation - if it appears like he's had growth and the symmetry has returned, we're done! If not, we keep going until it has (could be up to 6 months).