As you have probably noticed, Emma is now wearing a helmet. Here's why.
When I was 20 weeks pregnant with Emma, we went in for a detailed ultrasound, to check for any possible problems, and to find out her gender!
Along with finding out that she was a girl (yay!), we also saw that she was facing left in the womb.
From that time on, every ultrasound we had showed that she was facing left. So, I wasn't totally surprised when she was born in transverse position, that is, head facing left.
She continued this preference for facing left as she grew older.
Because Emma was spending so much time looking left, the muscles on the right side of her neck weren't getting enough exercise. As a result, her neck got tight on the right and she couldn't look right as easily as she could look left. She also got a flat spot on the back of her head, because it was staying in the same position so much.
Emma's doctor diagnosed her with torticollis and plagiocephaly and referred us to a physical therapist to help strengthen her neck muscles.
We love her therapist. He has been super kind and very helpful with Emma. We started out with a couple of neck stretches on her for 2-3 minutes, 3 times a day.
Here's what her stretches look like:
Here's what her stretches look like:
Note: Emma does not hate her stretches this much (I promise we're not baby torturers!!!). These photos were taken after a full therapy session, when she was really tired. She normally doesn't mind them too much.
After we got the hang of the stretches, Emma's therapist increased them to 15 minutes, 4 times a day. It's a lot of work, but her neck strength is improving a lot. Getting her to hold funky positions for 15 minutes at a time is tricky too, but my sister gave us some Baby Einstein dvds and they are great distractions.
We kept doing the stretches, and also worked on tummy time (an hour a day to help strengthen her neck muscles) and repositioning Emma to help her face right more often, but after a couple of months her head still wasn't reshaping itself well enough., so her physical therapist referred us to an orthotics office to see about getting a helmet for Emma.
So, that's why Emma needs a hemet-- to help correct her flat head.
Stay tuned for another post with more details about the process of getting a helmet, how the helmet works, and how it is going so far!
After we got the hang of the stretches, Emma's therapist increased them to 15 minutes, 4 times a day. It's a lot of work, but her neck strength is improving a lot. Getting her to hold funky positions for 15 minutes at a time is tricky too, but my sister gave us some Baby Einstein dvds and they are great distractions.
We kept doing the stretches, and also worked on tummy time (an hour a day to help strengthen her neck muscles) and repositioning Emma to help her face right more often, but after a couple of months her head still wasn't reshaping itself well enough., so her physical therapist referred us to an orthotics office to see about getting a helmet for Emma.
So, that's why Emma needs a hemet-- to help correct her flat head.
Stay tuned for another post with more details about the process of getting a helmet, how the helmet works, and how it is going so far!
