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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

« October 2006- Big Sister Hannah! | Main | March 2007 - Jack's Referral & Specialist Visit »

January 2007- Welcome Baby Jack!

Little Jack has arrived!  He was born on his due date, January 20th, and weighed 8lbs 1oz and was 21 inches long!  I'm only five feet tall, so having a baby that big was a definite surprise and had I known he was that big I surely would have chickened out of the natural childbirth, lol!  My labor was great though considering I had to be induced, just 4.5 hours start to finish, and only 4 minutes of pushing.  Jack is perfectly healthy and such a sweet baby.  We are all totally in love and Hannah is absolutely obsessed with him. 

Like the ultrasounds may have hinted, Jack was indeed born with a head shape similar to Hannah's.  The pediatrician said I must have a nice cozy pocket in my uterus that they like to settle into and not move.  It has improved quite a bit since birth and we're hoping that will continute.  He has a definite preference to his right side, but also like Hannah his neck doesn't seem tight at all.  We've been repositioning him as much as we can and we've been making use of various sleep positioners we have.  Jack also had a majorly smooshed ear like Hannah, but his was completely flat, where hers was folded down.  At his first pediatrician evaluation (yes, we still have the same one) she said she wasn't sure if the cartilidge even formed correctly, but thankfully it did and it has popped out since.

This first picture of him sleeping was taken at 2 days old and I think you can see the slant of his head pretty well.  The awake and birds eye pictures were just taken at three weeks old.  You can certainly see the improvement from the front!  I'm going to try again to get a birds eye one that shows the areas of concern better just so I have a good before picture to compare our repositioning progress to.  He was being a major wiggle worm when I was trying to get that one!  I find it so weird that he has the exact dent over his left ear that Hannah did.  They really must have been in very similar positions.

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Comments

Congrats! What a beautiful baby. :)

Angela(Heather's mom from the plagio board)

Posted by: Angela | June 26, 2007 at 04:28 PM

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