weird shaped head

[sunnyglasgow]

My neice has a badly shaped head (dented at the side?) and she is unable to turn her head round and is always in the same position. She is 5 months old and also doesnt really move her right arm. she also isnt very strong with her neck and isnt able to really sit up?

Do you think she should be check out?

 

[wubba]

My first son had low muscle tone and torticollus (wry neck) and had a badly shaped head like this (he could not turn his head well either). I was told he would grow out of it, but it was still as bad as ever at 9 months. He got a helmet privately (£2000), which sorted it out. I would not trust health visitors and GPs who say babies will grow out of this. They do not know enough about it. Mild cases can resolve, but, if it is severe, they will not correct and the child will have to live with a strange shaped head for the rest of their lives.

 

[steffi2]

There could be many causes of a irregularly shaped head. It could be from plagiocephaly due to lying her flat all the time.I got this info on the web:

"A number of studies have associated the recent dramatic increase in the number of children with flatten heads with the "back sleep campaign." Since more children sleep on their backs, more have some flattening of the back of their heads. This condition can be much worse on one side if a child preferentially sleeps with that side down. Positional (or deformational) plagiocephaly, also known as flattened head syndrome, results from preferentially lying on one side of the head."

Another cause could be from craniosynostosis where the sutures (openings of the skull) fuse too early. There are different types of cranio: Saggital which is the elongated head (like a football), metopic (triangular shaped), lamboid (where more than one suture is closed) and coronal (where there is bossing on one side of the forehead). My daughter had the last one. One side of her forehead had a bump, while the other side hardly had a forehead and was flat. Her eyebrows were misaligned and her eyes were not the same size. She had surgery at 5 months and is now 5 and looks perfect. She also had a slight head tilt (torticollis) when she was a baby and she had therapy for it. There could also be other causes which I am not educated about. Your best option though is to see a pediatritic neurologist so he could find out what is causing her head to have this shape. Good luck!

 

[mumto5]

My son also had Plagiocephaly and we also had to gte it privately as the HV and paeds said he would out grow it.
look on thier website this is the company we went too but there other helmet comapnies around
https://www.ossur.co.uk/?PageID=10958
this is a great support group aswell that will give loads of advice
https://www.plagiocephalycare.org/
If you ever want to chat or even phone us for a chat about this treatment then message me privately and i will pass on our contact details

 

[amygwen]

My niece had the same thing. My sister actually took her for her six month appointment, where her doctor advised she go to a specialist and she has to get a Doc Band helmet put on for 12 weeks. So, I would say that she needs to go get it checked out def!

 

[velvetina]

Agree with the others hun, I would get her checked out. Make an appointment with the gp rather than hv then you can get a straight referral if your gp feels its necessary. x

 

[WW1]

I would get her checked out as well. My LO has craniosynostosis (sagittal) and will require surgery.

It may be nothing (since Rebecca was diagnosed I've looked at lots of head shapes and realise many people have "odd" shaped heads which are perfectly fine!) but it really is worth getting properly checked out.

HVs and GPs often know very little about these conditions so you might need to persevere a bit!

Please let us know how you get on