Gabriel

Gabriel starts physical therapy on Tuesday for Torticollis and Positional Plagiocephaly. What's with our kids always trying to be the center of attention!? (Dylan's jaundice, Cameron's apnea, Gabriel's torticollis). Basically, Torticollis is where a baby tends to prefer turning their head to one side (often due to issues with the neck muscles), this then often leads to Positional Plagiocephaly which is commonly called a 'flat spot'. Most people don't even realize that Gabriel's head isn't perfectly symmetrical, but as his mommy, I look at him a lot. It's nothing too serious, but I mentioned to the dr at his checkup about it and she said that he seems to favor looking to the right. He sometimes looks to the left, but prefers the right...and he always lays on his right which is starting to be a little flatter than the left since he never lays on his left. He will be going tomorrow for a skull xray just to make sure that it's nothing else, but I'm sure it's just a flat spot from laying on his right side so much. It's fairly common. I thought it was odd that they suggested physical therapy for a 4 mo old, but I guess they help strengthen the neck muscles and they massage the neck and do stretching exercises. I guess some baby's have it because of how they were laying in the womb. If he laid in a certain position for a long time, then it just became comfortable for him and his muscles just got stretched more on one side. They also say that since it's best to have babies sleep on their backs (to reduce the risk of SIDS), more babies now have flat spots than in the past.