It finally happened. You were dreading this day and hoping and praying it would never happen but to your chagrin it did. Your five-year-old adorable perfect son came home crying from kindergarten and at first you could not comprehend how he could be crying about school when his first experience in the educational system was so positive until now. He loved his teachers, got along amazingly well with the boys in his class and came home almost every day enthusiastically telling you all he learned.

However, all the positivity of the last two months has been transformed due to a complaint by your son that one of the boys in his grade asked him why the back of his head is flat. This was not done in a bullying fashion because your son was not accusing the boy of being nasty, rather your son felt bad about being singled out for something that he knew he had, his flat head. This innocent friend was just plain curious as to why your son’s head looked different than anyone else’s.

You know when you have a worry that’s been going on for years in the back of your mind, but you try putting it to sleep or in a separate drawer in your brain? In your case, it’s been five years since you noticed that the back of your baby’s head was slightly flat. Because your doctor told you to leave it alone at the time and you are the type of person that prefers to go the natural way whether pertaining to medications or optional immunization, you chose to take your doctor’s advice. Of course, the regular childhood shots are a must since you would not put your children in jeopardy for polio, measles and the like. But those extras such as flu and COVID-19 shots are activities you will not participate in for your children and so too, the idea of helmet therapy.

Getting back to the wriggling feeling that you have been having for the last five years with your son’s head not getting rounder as he grew, it has really come back now to haunt you full circle. “What was I thinking when I went along with my pediatrician’s opinion? Why didn’t I at least consult a cranial therapist and see what the therapist would say?” Didn’t your sister tell you that she thinks your son needs a cranial helmet? You totally ignored her concern and answered her confidentially that your doctor recommended leaving it alone. Now you are more than sorry for your ignorance and are stressing about what will happen to your son with future encounters similar to the one in school.

Since your son was a baby, you have changed pediatricians because you moved to another town. In fact, just last month when you took your adorable three-month-old baby daughter for her checkup, the doctor advised you to check out her head with a cranial therapist. You said to yourself that your son is fine, and girls certainly can hide a flat head with their hair so you did nothing about your doctor’s sage advice. So, right now you are up to the same problem with your daughter and what are you going to do about it?

There are two concerns that you have but they are really one and the same. Both your son and your daughter are showing symptoms of plagiocephaly or flat head syndrome. Sometimes this syndrome does run in families, or it could very well be that both of your children are being brought up similarly when it comes to sleeping and carrying patterns.

The above imaginary words of caution are unfortunately not far from the truth. It is so important to bring a baby’s flat head to the attention of the parents even if they might get insulted. There are wise ways of prefacing the information that you want to impart, and you would be making a serious mistake of ignoring what is so obvious to you, a serious case of plagiocephaly.

No one can blame a busy mother for keeping their baby in some sort of container such as a car seat, Doona car seat & stroller or a baby swing. These types of containers keep the baby satisfied whether awake or at rest and give the baby a feeling of security since the baby is in a loose fetal position. These postures take a toll on the back of the baby’s head and without adequate tummy time, there is a fair chance of the back of the head flattening substantially.

Experts are at large as to the question, is cranial helmet therapy for cosmetic improvement or can it be for a deeper issue? Even if it is only for cosmetic purposes if not addressed the flat head will most likely cause deeper issues like the five-year-old boy in the above scenario. Looking at past experiences with children with flat head syndrome, professionals have become aware that plagiocephaly is a serious consequence and should be dealt with earnestly and promptly. It is a downright pity for a parent to neglect the beginnings of a flat head when their baby is a few months old. If caught early, a few months in a cranial helmet is all that is required and the results are remarkable. There is no need to worry that when the helmet is removed the flatness will return. Although cranial helmets can be compared to teeth braces, there is a difference. Some folks’ teeth have a tendency to become somewhat crooked again especially if the braces were put on too early. There are remedies for those situations that should be taken advantage of such as permanent invisible wiring behind the teeth.

Cranial helmet therapy does not work the same way as braces on the teeth for the simple reason that once the helmet is removed the baby is at the age where he or she is becoming quite mobile either by crawling, sitting, or rolling over by themselves. The reason that a flat head comes into existence in the first place is because the baby is constantly on their back and not on their tummy. This positioning has saved many babies’ lives since the 1990’s when SID’s (sudden infant death syndrome) was happening for mysterious reasons. That is until the “back to sleep” movement came to be explaining that babies could choke or stop breathing if they were not strong enough to lift their heads while sleeping on their tummies.

When it is time to remove the helmet and evaluate the improvement of the baby’s head, he or she is already active enough so that he or she will not allow the parents to keep them on their back. They will be at the point of trying to sit up, crawl or at least turn over by themselves preferring to sleep on their tummies. So, the chances are quite slim that the plagiocephaly will return.

Unfortunately, there is nothing much the mother of the five-year-old boy at the beginning of this article can do to improve her son’s obvious flat head. Plagiocephaly must be addressed while the bones of the head are still soft and flexible. The bones harden in some babies by the time they reach their first birthday. The mother in question must now pursue psychological and emotional avenues of improvement which might ultimately lead to social therapy. A boy like this will have to toughen up emotionally in order to avoid flare ups of curiosity or bullying by other boys his age.

Final Words

There are several reasons why a parent would hesitate to have their baby evaluated for plagiocephaly. It could be that this is their first child, and they are not even aware that there is a remedy for a flat head. They figure this is how their baby is growing and they must accept this head shape. Or their pediatrician does not agree with cranial therapy and is not aware of the long term consequences of a flat head. There are also financial reasons why a family would not be able to afford a cranial therapy helmet unless their insurance company will cover it. There are organizations that will help defray the cost of helmeting or fight the insurance company to pay for it.

Cranial helmet therapy is more than a cosmetic fix. Most of us have encountered adults with flat heads and wondered why their parents did not do anything about it. Today, men wear their hair short or even shave their heads so you cannot miss their flat heads. Even the Chinese who used to favor flat heads have begun to use cranial helmets and it’s become popular worldwide. Yet, we still see innocent babies and children with flat heads that were not addressed until they go to school and are given the undivided attention of bullies or just plain curious classmates. No one wants their child to be singled out in this way.