Torticollis

On Monday Beth had her first appointment with the Physical Therapist at Children's.  The PT, named Kathy, was very nice and comforted me by being so patient with all of my questions.  The most important thing that we learned was that our little Beth does have a case of torticollis. 

What is torticollis?  It is a neck condition in which one of the 2 main neck muscles is shorter than the other.  This causes the head to tilt toward the side of the short muscle and rotate toward the other side.  Beth's case is mild to moderate and does not appear to be causing her any pain.  They think that this might be why we had such trouble breast feeding.  Apparently these same muscles are big players in the suck/swallow process. 

Here are a couple of pictures that show you what it looks like in her case.  Bear in mind that she has good days and bad days and as a mommy I have a really hard time taking pictures of the bad days.  These are from fairly moderate days.

It looks like we will be able to treat this with weekly visits for a few months and then taper off to once a month after that.  Kathy believes that within 6 months her condition will be resolved.  We have a series of stretches and exercises to do on a daily basis and will be changing how we do everyday things like feeding her.  For example, we will make the left side of her the "interesting" side with toys and such to encourage her to turn her head in that direction.  She is already showing some improvement after only 2 days of work. 

The doctors are not certain what causes torticollis but some think that position in utero or trauma during childbirth could be factors.  One of the most interesting things I was told is that since it has become common practice to have our babies sleep on their backs, the rates of torticollis has skyrocketed.  They don't think that it is the cause but that it makes it less likely that babies that have it will self-correct it because their necks don't get as much exercise.  One other side note for Beth is that this may lead to her needing to wear one of those shape-correcting helmets for the back of her head.  I really, really hope not. 

What a pain in the neck!