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Hannah's Info Sheet

  • Print one out!
    This is a great guide to preventing, recognizing, and treating Plagiocephaly. It is a simple one page overview of the most important things about plagio that EVERYONE should know! Please pass it along to your friends, family, pediatrician, etc. Our local Early Intervention office was very happy to have these! You are more than welcome to use this as a guide to making your own--it's very helpful to keep in the diaper bag for the many people who ask about the helmet.

Hannah in the Media

  • Hannah in Cranial Tech's 2004 DOCband Calendar
    Check out my Miss July 2004! You can see the entire new 2005 calendar on Cranial Technologies' website!
  • AZ Fox News Story
    MPG file from a news story aired on an Arizona's Fox 10 News channel about Cranial Technologies' role in the separation of the Egyptian twins who were once joined at the head. Hannah's picture makes a brief appearance towards the end of this video!
  • Newspaper Article
    This front page article on Hannah's Story ran in our local newspaper.

Plagiocephaly Prevention

  • ~Limit use of swings, bouncy seats, car seats, etc. Try a carrier that allows you to "wear" baby instead.
  • ~Use a memory foam sleep positioner to alternate which way baby's head is turned while still backsleeping.
  • ~Rotate placement of toys in the crib, carseat, stroller, and during floor play time.
  • ~When bottle feeding, be sure to alternate which side you hold your baby on during feedings
  • ~Provide lots of supervised tummy time from birth.
  • ~Alternate the end you place your baby's head at in the crib and on the changing table

Torticollis

  • Many babies who develop plagio have neck tightness, or Torticollis, which makes repositioning very difficult. These babies may need physical therapy or neck stretching exercises.

Favorite Plagiocephaly Links

  • Plagiocephaly.org
    A great website with info on everything plagio related--from prevention to treatment and everything in between.
  • Cranial Technologies
    Makers of Hannah's DOCbands. Their website has a fabulous Tummy Time Brochure and tons of research and information, including a parents area with discussion board.
  • CAPPSkids
    Cranioysynostosis And Positional Plagiocephaly Support
  • Yahoo! Groups : Plagiocephaly
    An online community of about 3,500 members! This is a parent run site designed to help parents identify and avoid plagio, as well as support in repositioning, banding, and fighting isurance for coverage! This is the best place to get any plagio related question answered!

About Treatment

  • Early diagnosis is the key to treating plagiocephaly. For mild to moderate cases, a trial of aggressive repositioning is recommended first. If after a few weeks the desired results are not accomplished, helmet therapy is often recommended. The best correction is achieved in babies younger than 6 months when the skull is still very soft and growing rapidly, and most helmet providers only treat until age 18 months. Helmets are custom made to a rounded version of your baby’s head and are generally worn 23 hours a day for 3-4 months. It does not hurt the child or pose any risk to proper brain growth and development.

Hannah's Plagio Pals

Plagiocephaly Merchandise

  • Precious Bambino
    Plagiocephaly Gifts, T-Shirts, Mugs & Plagio Wear! Sayings like "Banded Beauty, Helmet Laws Stink, Under Construction," and Graduation T-Shirts!

Plagio & Cranio Webring

« August-November 2002- DOCband #2 | Main | April-July 2004- DOCband #3 & An "Older" Baby »

February-March 2003- Regression Fears & Visiting CT Corporate

A few months after graduation, when Hannah was about 14 months old, I started thinking her head was looking a bit worse. I know many parents of graduates go through this, so I figured that was all it was. I started thinking I was going crazy imagining things, so I took some pictures of her head and compared them to her exit photos from band #2. I still didn't think her head looked as good as it did at graduation so I contacted Cranial Tech.

Because we had opted out of the exit cast after band #2, (as I figured with her being a year old and not having tort or anything, the risk of her regressing was next to nothing) we had no record of her exact headshape at graduation. We were about to fly out to Arizona to Cranial Tech's corporate headquarters anyway for a conference that I'd be attending with the other moderators of the Yahoo! Plagio Group, so Cranial Tech offered us some options. While in Arizona we had her pictures done again to try and compare the shape. They tried to recreate the exact angles done at her graduation four months earlier in order to compare. Here are the two sets of pictures next to each other. We also had the opportunity to digitize her in Cranial Tech's new digitizer, which is still in clinical trials. Here are some pictures of her "digitized" head: Digitizer1

Seeing her head in 3D was very helpful in determining what was asymmetry and what *appeared* to be asymmetry, considering Hannah has a head tilt. They were also concerned with the head tilt, considering tort had been ruled out many times. They thought Hannah would benefit from being banded again, and after having her eyes tested (because of the tilt) and speaking to our pediatrician again, we decided to go for it. Our previously anti-banding ped really surprised me when I asked her opinion on the third band and she said, "you've been this far, why stop just short of the finish line?" Our pediatrician wrote the third prescription and Hannah was casted for her band back in Connecticut. She received her third band on March 30th, at 15.5mos of age.