Should we put our baby in a helmet to mold her head?

Question

We took our healthy daughter for her 4-month checkup and half-jokingly asked the doctor whether we should be concerned about the fact her head is a bit mis-shapen. It is fairly round in the back left but the back right is noticably flatter.

To our surprise, she referred us to a cranial plastic surgeon for their opinion and so that we can "be presented with our options while its still early enough to do something"...with the most likely option being a special helmet that helps her skull to grow evenly.

We have the follow-up appointment next week where I'm hoping to get answers to these and other questions, but we'd love to hear answers/opinions from anyone else that has heard of this:

1. Any risks to be aware of?
2. How common is this sort of thing?
3. Is there any reason to use the helmet other than cosmetic reasons?
4. Will my daughter resent us for not getting the helmet for her if she has a mis-shapen head later in life?

Answer 1

My daughter had the DOC helmet. She got it at 10 months old, and the whole reason we went with the DOC helmet and not the Ballert helmet was because the Ballert people basically had this really crummy attitude about older kids getting the helmet, and we'd only been referred to the craniofacial doc when my daughter was 9 months old.

1. No, no risks.
2. More common than you'd think, particularly with infants sleeping on their backs now and the use of baby swings.
3. Well I was a big fan of the fact that I could walk my daughter into a doorjamb, but other than that, not really. It's kind of nice when they take a leaping dive off the couch, too, but you probably don't have to worry about that at 4 months.
4. Who knows? I'm sure she'll add it to the list of resentments she'll constantly be forming.

A couple of other things to be aware of. Other people are idiots. If you do opt for the helmet (I highly recommend if insurance covers it that you do), people will approach you and ask you stupid questions like "does she fall down a lot?" or my favorite, the lady who told me "I'll be praying for her" without asking what the helmet was for.

Answer 2

I'm going to put forward the counter-argument.

Be aware, the evidence to suggest that the misshapen head that babies get from sleeping on their back is going to lead to a permanently misshapen skull is highly contentious, especially in medical systems where there's less of a profit motive, and therefore no real advantage to the medical centre in selling what is at core a £2,000 cycle helmet.

The argument is that this will sort itself out on its own as the skull matures.

If you want to go ahead with this just in case, that's fine, but it's worth doing some research first.

Answer 3

Our son had a bit of a misshapen skull, and we were recommended to take him for cranial osteopathy.

The osteopath was great over a course of a number of months (think he had about 5-6 sessions) the plates of his skull were gently manipulated to aid them with their alignment as he grew and they set.

This seemed to do the trick.

Answer 4

I too would choose the cranial osteopathic route (but my gf is an osteopath and both our children have benefitted from osteopathic treatment).

UK specific, but The Osteopathic Centre for Children www.occ.uk.com is a specialist centre for paediatric osteopathy, they run both a clinic and extensive postgraduate training for osteopaths in cranial techniques and their specific application to children. There is a list of graduates of their course on their website so if you are not London based you can look to see if there is a specialist qualified paediatric cranial osteopath near you. If not, ring them for advice. Ring them and ask questions anyway, 020 8875 5290 or email them your questions at enquiries@fpo.org.uk