Preventing Flat Head Syndrome

Have you heard of Flat Head Syndrome? Maybe it is because I used to work with a child who used to wear a helmet for this reason or maybe it was just because I was pregnant, but I have been noticing a lot more babies in helmets. I had no idea it has become so common until I had the opportunity to research the Tortle.

“Every baby is at risk of positional plagiocephaly or torticollis (flat head syndrome), and 48% of them develop the condition to some degree. Almost half!

And it’s preventable.

Because babies are skulls are soft, yet heavy and necks are weak, infants are vulnerable to developing this condition in the first few months of life. This is why, proper movement and deliberate repositioning your infant directly from birth is one of the keys to healthy development of your infant.”

Let me introduce to you the Tortle. A comfortable, lightweight baby beanie designed to help prevent flat head syndrome. (keep reading before you judge the picture, trust me!)

According to the Tortle site, 1 out of every 3 healthy babies will develop some kind of flat head syndrome after birth. Not only is it important to help keep the shape the skull and prevent flat spots while an infant is young there is more than a cosmetic worry to flat head syndrome, too. Also according to the Tortle site,”there can be trouble with binocular vision and long-term developmental issues” associated with children who have or had flat spots as an infant. The beanie can also be used to help treat some instances of torticollis, or unbalanced neck muscles. Checkout this video below: (click here if you do not see it)

This has been a slight worry of mine with my little one. Until my baby can sit up on her own, what time she spends not in my arms is laying on her back in her swing, crib, carseat or on her play mat. Although she gets lots and lots of lovin’ around here, she sleeps a ton and that means a lot of time on her back! I also think she may have some unbalanced neck muscles (see pic below). No matter how I tried to adjust her, her right ear always ended up back on her shoulder. Not only does that look incredibly uncomfortable, but it also put her head back in the same spot defeating all my attempts to prevent flat head syndrome. And after her first month or so I started to notice that she preferred not to turn her head to look towards the right . So needless to say, I was excited to be able to try out the Tortle with her.

As you can see, the Tortle has been a helpful tool to retrain her sleep positions with her head. I now feel like I have more control to prevent her from resting on the same spot a lot easier with the hat. I did get her a couple of adjustments via the chiropractor (it’s nice to have one in the family!) to help with her stiff neck and that really seemed to help her with her neck movement. But she had a habit of wanting her head resting on her shoulder when she slept still, so the hat has worked great with that. I will admit that when I first put her in the hat, she is not a happy camper for a minute or two. I am sure it is because it is forcing her to look in a new direction, but she quickly calms down. We have also had some unusually warm winter weather here and I was worried that a hat would be too warm, but she never got sweaty (and she is usually a pretty sweaty baby).

Pros:

• Prevents flat head syndrome
• Washable
• Soft
• Comes in 3 different colors and you can even add a cute headband to the girly ones
• Made out of a stretchy fabric so it kind of compresses/forms to the baby’s head shape
• Adjustable – Gives you control on where/how your baby is resting their head

Cons:

• Because the hat needs to be a good fit and babies’ skulls grow so fast the first 6 months there are 3 different sizes, so you may have to upgrade to the next size as your baby grows.

*I received the free product as part of a promotional program with Tortle and MomSelect. All opinions are 100% my own!