Babies Flat Head Pissing Me Off!!

Hi there, have you any updates on your how little one is now? My baby is almost 6 months and has plagiocephaly, facial feautures and ears are not asymmetric but his head is flat at the back. He had so many issues when he was a young baby and being a FTM I never knew to reposition him when he was always looking to his right. Feel terrible about it now. We're in the UK so no helmets.

Get a helmet! It doesn't correct itself and after ten months it's extremely hard to make a difference with a helmet or anything else.

My sister had to use one for her son 6 years ago and was £2500. My son had a slight flat head but nothing extreme. His head never corrected itself though (but it wasn't bad enough to use a helmet).

@PurpleRayne89

hello, Im going through the same with my DS, he is 4 months. Can I ask you a year later what you're experience has been, did it resolve itself ?
many thanks 🌸

We are going for the helmet it's our only choice even if you spend out everything you got at least you know you tried it seems like the only option

My son was the same. His ears were in completely different places. I bought a special mattress and over time it corrected itself. He’s 15 now.

It doesn't just resolve itself. I listened too much to people saying that and it just got worse and worse. In the end, we used a sleepcurve mattress (which is controversial so you need to make your own risk assessment for that) in the cot, and a small soft pillow in the pram/baby chair (always supervised). I also used a sling rather than the pram as much as possible and a bumbo as much as possible too. All this made a big difference but didn't entirely fix it. The baby is now a teenager and has hair so it's not obvious. Still has quite a large forehead but the large side of normal rather than abnormally large.

I took in a little one who had this, really bad. Helmet was the only way but they’re not NHS issued it was private only. Helped a lot! It’s still there a little but now his floppy teenage hair cover it but his face is absolutely fine. Wouldn’t know a thing!

My daughter had a very severe case and now at 5, one eye is still affected but barely noticeable if you didn’t ‘know’. It really upset me for a while, but other than lots of tummy time etc, I don’t think there’s much else you can do.

My son had this. Get the helmet if you can and get it quickly whilst the skull is still malleable. My GP have me a load of old tosh about it “resolving itself”. Yeah whatever.

I got mine a thin memory foam pillow designed to correct flat headedness. I put it under the fitted sheet so it couldn't move around and he slept on his back. Cured the problem in weeks. Perfectly round head.

Ofc you say this and everyone tells you the baby will roll on its front and bury its face flat into the mattress and suffocate. However the risk from pillows is that they can move around. Pinned under the sheet, this one can't, plus it's rather stiff and can't cover the noise. It acts like a soft extension of the mattress.

Anyway, like I say, sorted us right out.

Both my kids were the same. Very severe, enough to justify a scan to confirm it was nothing serious.

It was at the time helmets were introduced. I asked the consultant if they were required. He told me that unless there is a a structural deformity, heads always go back to a normal shape and those helmets are a total waste.

Sure enough, my kids' heads mold themselves naturally to perfect normality naturally by the time they were 2ish. I look back at pics of my son and it was quite scary how deformed his was, one eye much smaller, one side of his jaw much higher than the other. He did look very misshapen!

@ cowboy please send the link to your post I can't find it

Purple r

Can you send a link to your post so we could talk

Scientific studies show that it doesn't work. "It worked for me" is not evidence because people often attribute improvements to the treatment, when many conditions resolve themselves naturally.

Did they not recommend helmet therapy OP?

My DS had a pretty flat head (no idea about torticollis) this was 13 years ago when flat heads had just become a thing (aka people had realised they could make money out of parents from it). I don't think you would have any idea now to look him! Don't waste any more money on unproven unscientific 'treatments'.

There is absolutely no scientific basis for cranial osteopathy. BUPA are a customer-driven organisation - they fact that they pay for them means nothing.

There is a reason why you will never meet an NHS cranial osteopath. It's woo. Just like homeopathy, it appears to work because all the conditions that they pretend to treat get better naturally anyway.

cranial oestos are not quacks - BUPA only pays for treatment that it believes will be useful and BUPA pays for cranial oesto on babies. Helped my son's digestive problems. The only thing with cranial oestos is they work on a gentle level and you don't see what they do. A test is whether your son sleeps better or is more settled after a session of cranial oest.