The only time that Mason doesn't wear the helmet is during bath time, for special pool events or when it just gets too hot. They decided the helmet couldn't hurt him and could only help. John Teichgraeber, a plastic surgeon who is co-director of the University of Texas Cleft-Craniofacial Team. The doctor suggested more supervised "tummy time." When things did not change by the time Mason turned six months, the doctor recommended a helmet. Mason's pediatrician told them Mason would probably grow out of it. "I had to have his doctor put my hands on Mason's ears and show me how his head was uneven."īecause Mason's head was flat on the right side, it caused the left side of his forehead above his eye, to protrude, she discovered. "We didn't see anything wrong with him at all we thought he was perfect, which he is," Laura Byrd said. The Byrds didn't notice Mason's flat spot until family members pointed it out. "I want to tell parents that the helmet does work," said Jodi Vogan, whose daughter Lauren, now 22 months, wore her helmet, decorated with flowers and butterflies, for four months. To the Byrds and other parents, they are. It added that more studies are needed to see if the helmets are worth the cost. They have two choices: do nothing and hope their babies' heads round out naturally, or buy a $3,000 helmet that often is not covered by insurance.Īdding to their confusion, a 2003 AAP clinical report said the helmets are "beneficial primarily when there has been a lack of response" to exercises and repositioning the baby. And parents don't know what to do about it. Since then, SIDS deaths have been cut nearly in half, but babies have a new problem - flat and sometimes asymetrically shaped heads. In 1992, the American Academy of Pediatrics urged parents to lay newborns on their backs instead of their stomachs to prevent sudden infant death syndrome.