9 Months In, 9 Months Out by Vanessa LoBue

Author:Vanessa LoBue
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2019-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

13

The Third Month

Developing Motor Skills

The third month brought with it some new surprises and some potential difficulties. When we went for our regular doctor’s visit, we learned that, despite the many issues I’ve been having with breastfeeding, Edwin is apparently getting plenty to eat. He now weighs in at over 13 pounds, and he’s 50th percentile in weight and 81st percentile in height. His pediatrician said he looked completely healthy. The only thing she was concerned about was his head shape—apparently it is very flat in the back. She called this condition plagiocephaly, or flat head. She strongly recommended that we talk to a physical therapist. So, as new and overly anxious parents, we obediently went to see the one she recommended a week later. The physical therapist not only confirmed Edwin’s plagiocephaly, but she also said that he had torticollis—which means “twisted head”—when she saw his head tilted slightly to the right while sitting in his car seat. Babies with torticollis tilt their heads to one side, typically because the muscles on the other side of the neck are stiffer due to positioning inside the womb or during sleep. The physical therapist recommended that we bring Edwin in for expensive physical therapy weekly for 6–8 weeks to fix both conditions; otherwise, she warned that his motor milestones—things like crawling and walking—might be delayed.

Edwin’s head was definitely flat, so the plagiocephaly diagnosis made sense (Figure 13.1). But making a quick torticollis diagnosis without so much as examining my newborn made me a bit skeptical. After all, Edwin was only 2 months old; he barely had the muscle control to hold his head up by himself, so it wasn’t all that surprising to me that when sitting in a reclined position, gravity caused his head to tilt to one side. Still, the word “delay” made me nervous enough to look into my options.

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