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The Case of the Flat Head

Posted by Christine on October 16, 2012 in Uncategorized |

Rory had his four month checkup last week and he is in the lower percentile for his age, which doesn’t seem unusual based on Cardin’s midgety history. He weighed in at 14.5 pounds and 24.5 inches.

I have a tendency to birth children with no hips/butts and those who grow at incredibly slow rates. Listen lady, I sincerely hope they can keep their metabolism for the future so that they can maintain their boney ass structure.

Unfortunately, we didn’t get all good news at his checkup. Rory’s head is a bit misshapen. Technically, this is called Plagiocephaly. It is a condition characterized by an asymmetrical distortion (flattening of one side) of the skull.

There are two main causes for this condition.
1) The back to sleep campaign encouraged parents to only let children sleep on their backs to reduce the risks of SIDS thereby forcing pressure on the babies skull.

2)A restrictive intrauterine environment can put pressure on the developing skull causing distortion.

UMMMMMMMM…….can we say bingo.
In other words….my gigantic spleen was so cramping to his fetal development that I caused him a case of the flat heads.

The more and more I researched the condition, the worse I felt. It seemed that Rory’s unofficial “spleen twin” had caused this distortion. Luckily, our Peditrican is awesome and noticed the flattening affect early on when he was only 2 months. We have been trying repositioning therapy for the past 2 months to try and self correct. This type of therapy allows Rory to look in different directions and try to even out the shape of his skull naturally. Unfortunately, we have had little luck. He favors looking to his left side, though if I flash him a bottle or Cardin screams like a banchi we can get him to turn to the right.

We are scheduled for an appointment to have his skull measured next week with a specialist. From there we’d arrange a treatment plan; which would likely involve him wearing a helmet for 3-4 months. While this isn’t ideal, it’s a painless treatment regimen and I’m assured that he will adjust to wearing the helmet for 23 hours a day very easily; I hope so. The Peditrican emphasized that the time for treatment is now, before his skull bones fuse together and his head is permanently misshapen.

It will be a big adjustment for the whole family, and it’s made more difficult right now by the fact that I can’t hold and comfort him while them poke, prod, and measure due to my healing incision.

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