“Every skull is different, and the timing of the child’s head growth can vary, so we would not encourage getting a helmet unless it’s prescribed, custom-made, and closely followed in the office,” he says.Īnother caveat: It’s unclear whether even the best custom-made helmets are any better than simply doing nothing. While some manufacturers sell helmets online or in stores directly to consumers, Rizk discourages buying one of those. Rizk says that the helmets can cost several thousand dollars and that many insurers don’t cover them. “The child has to visit with an orthotic specialist maybe once per week to adjust for the rapid head growth during that time period,” Rizk says, and babies “have to wear the helmet 23 hours per day for several months sometimes.”
Going this route is a task for families, Risk says. Typically prescribed when a baby is around 6 months old, the helmet allows growth in the flat area of the head while inhibiting it in other spots. If a mild to severe flat spot remains even after trying these steps for four to eight weeks, some doctors may prescribe a head-shaping helmet for your baby to wear before the skull bones fully fuse. So stretching out your infant’s neck muscles can encourage greater head movement, providing the opportunity for growth and expansion in the flat areas of the head. The more your baby looks in one direction, the more the neck muscles contract on that side. Often plagiocephaly is linked to neck stiffness, a condition called torticollis. Ask your pediatrician about gentle neck stretches for your baby.Limit the amount of time your baby spends in car seats, bouncers, swings, and other carriers, which can constrain head movement and put pressure on the same spots on the head as lying flat.Alternate how you hold your baby during feedings so that her head is not always pressed flat in the same position.Regularly switch where you stand when changing your baby’s diaper so that he won’t have to turn to only one side in order to look at you.If you have a mobile hanging in the crib, move it around periodically so that your baby is enticed to turn in a new direction to see it.Lay your baby down in different spots in the crib from week to week so she’s not always facing in the same direction and pressing on the same spot on the back of her head.Give your baby plenty of supervised tummy time so that she is not always lying flat on her back even when she’s awake.If you’re concerned, talk with your pediatrician, who may suggest one or more of these strategies.
All these changes cause any flat spots to appear much less pronounced.
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The skin around their skull bones thickens, their hair grows in, and they get taller, which makes their head appear proportionally smaller. In addition, slight head deformities that do persist tend to become less noticeable as children get bigger, Rizk says. As babies get older, “they’re mobilizing more and sleeping less, so they have less pressure on their backside, and tends to improve with time,” he says. Rizk, MD, chief of pediatric neurosurgery at Penn State College of Medicine in Hershey, Pa., so they are more malleable than the skulls of older children or adults.īut Rizk says most plagiocephaly is benign and temporary, and doesn’t lead to any long-term developmental problems, contrary to what some parents may fear. That’s because the bones of a newborn’s skull are not yet fused together, says Elias B. It’s true that the more time babies spend in one position on their backs, the more likely they are to develop a flat spot.
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