A Surprisingly Sane Blog

Yes, my daughter has a crooked head.

She has something called Positional Plagiocephaly, which was most likely a result of the torticollis she had a birth.  Why did she have torticollis?  The orthotic specialist said it was probably because someone almost 9 pounds should never have had to take residence in my uterus for 39 weeks.  Translation:  I had to carry and birth a baby a bit too big for my body to handle.  The tight fetal living quarters and squeeze through my va-jay-jay were a little traumatic for the muscles in her neck, which protested by tensing and made it difficult for her to turn her little head.  After months of therapy, she was finally able look both ways, but by that point, she had developed a nice flat spot on the back of her skull.

If it’s a mild amount, no fixing is necessary.  However, April’s plagiocephaly is moderate-to-severe, and the neurosurgeon was concerned that it could cause problems later on if not treated now.  Problems such as dental abnormalities, TMJ, vision issues, and frequent ear infections.

Plus, while her hair covers the flat spot on her head, as she grows, the asymmetry will most likely affect her cute little face.

We have enough issues in our life that amount to self-consciousness and reasons to hate ourselves.  I don’t want to leave her with one that could be fixed as a baby.

She is just too precious to say no to, so we had already decided a month ago when this all started that we were going to go through with the treatment, even if we have to pay out of pocket.

Well, after an entire freaking month of waiting for it to go through, we got a phone call today informing us that our insurance accepted the claim! Meaning, they are going to cover all the costs, thank goodness.

While it’s kind of sad that her plagiocephaly is bad enough for insurance to actually pay for it, it’s a huge relief at the same time.  I felt like maybe I was stressed about nothing at all and my fears that it could be a problem weren’t warranted.  This flat spot is something that I have been worrying about since she was about two months old.  Her pediatrician was reluctant to give us a referral to the neurosurgeon and tried to assure us it was “just cosmetic”.  But cosmetic or not, I am so glad we pushed for that second opinion.  Turns out, it wasn’t just me being a worrywart mom.

We start the helmet-fitting process on Friday, whatever that means.  I assume something that has to do with fitting a helmet to her head, but hey, what do I know? Stay tuned for cute pictures of my crooked-headed munchkin in a helmet.

Current Mood: Esctatic

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 6th, 2009 at 1:49 pm and is filed under My Girls. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.