Pediatricians have been questioning the legitimacy of treating positional plagiocephaly with manual and helmet therapy due to the uncertainty of the fallout. What does a parent truly risk when they choose not to treat their baby? What do children benefit from in the future when going through cranial therapy? These are all questions which doctors, therapist, and parents have been asking ever since helmet therapy was introduced in a scientific piece of literature by Clarrenet al. back in 1979. (There are earlier findings of the people of ancient Peru where infant skulls were artificially shaped using external compression with fixed boards and pads or ritual head wrapping.)

In January 2013, The American Academy of Pediatrics published an article tilted Development at Age 36 Months in Children With Deformational Plagiocephaly. There it discussed an examination of a total of 455 children, where 224 had deformational plagiocephaly (DP)  and the other 231 without diagnosed DP. The children without a DP diagnosis were examined for development challenges from three years old. The result were that the children which were not diagnosed with DP and did not receive any positional plagiocephaly therapy scored lower on all scales proving that DP causes developmental problems.

Whether or not parents want to choose to accept the study finding that is up to them. But placing a child behind the educational eight ball is unfair. Schools are already failing 30 percent of the student body and the average classroom has an average of 13 percent of students with specific learning disabilities. The developmental challenges which come with plagiocephaly can often be fixed with manual or helmet therapy. When parents get educated by pediatricians on what is plagiocephaly at an early stage, very often helmet therapy can be avoided. In any case there is nothing to lose by going to a local cranial center and get a free evaluation.

What do parents risk by not treating plagiocephaly?

One of the main issues we bring up to parents is the social aspect of having a regular shaped head. With a child going through school with a flat spot on his or her head, it makes them an easier target for bullying. It’s often that kids who bully are looking to solve social problems which they don’t want to deal with themselves. Therefore when a child is an easy target they just might be the one who gets picked on. Imagine if your child was a beautiful blond haired girl who struggled academically but on a social level she seemed to managed just fine. More often than not she would be spared from the bullies in the class. But what if she had positional plagiocephaly as a child and was not properly diagnosed by a pediatrician or orthotist, thereby not getting the proper therapy to fix the problem. Now when she is in her teenage years that beautiful blonde hair just might lay right on her head due to poor facial asymmetry and she could be an easy target for bullying. This could have been avoided by treating positional plagiocephaly properly.

Though researchers emphasize that there findings do not imply that skull deformational causes developmental delay. Actually it appears to be just the opposite, baby’s which have developmental delays often have positional plagiocephaly. Regardless, there appears to be some correlation plagiocephaly and developmental issues. This might include cognitive delays, speech delays, motor delays, social, emotional, and behavioral delays. Each one of these issues may cause a significant challenge for this child to become a successful person in society.  

It seems to be so common to see baby helmets for flat head

Once your baby is diagnosed with plagiocephaly you will find that your not alone. In fact many popular celebrities have shown off their little babes in these cute adorable little helmets. There is a sense of pride when you are giving your child the best shot to look great. We all want are children to grow up and contribute to society. When girls look pretty and boys appear to be handsome, they both have a social edge. Yes it’s true that we teach are kids not to judge a book by a cover and to look at the unique attributes of the person. But today we live in a very judgmental society and people are assessed at first look. It’s the same reason as why we have are children go through a grueling two year period of braces to straighten out their teeth. A smile can light up the world but a smile with crooked teeth might be like a beautiful sun being covered by a thick grey storm cloud.

Types of therapy for plagiocephaly

When you verify with a licensed orthotist that the flat spot on the head is indeed plagiocephaly, you should begin changing the positioning the way your baby is laying. Repositioning is the primary approach to dealing with baby flat head syndrome. This means getting your baby to wean off the positions they love in order to reduce extensive pressure to the areas on the head which appear to be flat. Did you ever hear of “tummy time”?  The objective is to get your baby into an exercise where there is zero stress on the head and the neck muscles are being strengthen. It could be that the reason why he or she keeps on leaning on one side is because the neck muscles are short thereby causing a slight head tilt referred to as torticollis. Slowly the baby will begin getting into a new rhythm where the weight of the head is evenly distributed when in a resting position.

Helmet Therapy, refers to the baby wearing an orthotic device called a cranial remolding helmet. There are two variations of how the helmet appears. Orthoamerica has a helmet called the STARband which looks like a completely enclosed helmet with a circular cutout at the top to allow the escape of heat. The DOC Band is a smaller and lighter version of the classic cranial remolding helmet. There is significant more open area around the head and the helmet is kind of like a wrap, providing pressure to the areas which require helmet therapy. There are many advantages that STARband provides which DOC Band does not.

How should one react the next time they see a baby in a cranial helmet?

There is nothing wrong with that cute baby and there is no reason why the mom or dad should feel a social complex. Try and make them feel comfortable by telling them how cute the helmet decals are. The STARband helmets shell can have pretty much any design affixed to it. One of our favorites for boys is to place your favorite NFL home team on it. Next time bring your baby to game day and he will feel like one of the boys. For girls there are all types of prints from princesses to flowers to adorable ladybugs. It’s all how you perceive it, either yum and fun or dumb and mum. The last thing you want to do is make the parents uncomfortable for doing the right thing for the child.

Conclusion

Though it cannot be directly proven that positional plagiocephaly causes developmental delays there is significant correlation between the two. Therefore more often than not they go hand and hand. What we do know is that children will greatly benefit from cranial therapy later on in life on a social level which is very important to anyone’s development.