Helmet Head

Today Jack began wearing his custom fitted Star Band.  The Star Band is a helmet designed for babies with less than perfectly round heads.  Over the next 3 to 5 months (3 I hope) Jack's helmet will encourage growth in the areas where his head is flat in order to give it an overall more rounded appearance.

Deciding to put Jack in the helmet was a decision that Ed and I struggled with at first, because to us our baby is perfect just the way he is.  However, it is and always has been apparent that Jack has a flat spot on the back right side of his head.  When the flat spot failed to round out on its own as I had assumed it would, we took Jack to see a specialist and of course she recommended the helmet.  While the helmet is a medical orthotic device, its use, at least in our case is strictly cosmetic.   Once we were faced with the decision of whether or not to get a helmet for our son, my husband and I both started to take notice of people's head shapes.  If you take the time to look around, you will notice (especially among men with short hair or bald heads) some very oddly shaped heads.  Obviously these baby helmets were not available a generation ago, and because of that there are some adults walking around with flat heads!  If there ever came a day when Jack was self conscious about his flat head, I would never forgive myself for not getting the helmet!   Ultimately we decided to put Jack in the helmet based on the fact that it can't hurt anything, it can only help.  So now, for the next few months, he will wear his helmet 23 hours a day.

My best attempts at photographing his head.  He does not sit still anymore, but you can see how the back left rounds out while the back right is still flat.  His head scan showed that the right hemisphere of his head has 90% of the volume that the left hemisphere has.  This helmet should encourage that right side to fill out more.

Once we decided to go ahead and order the helmet I began my research on how to decorate the helmet.  I knew I wanted it custom painted, and I came across a website for an artist in California who specializes in painting baby helmets.  Her work is amazing and she was able to give me exactly what I requested.  Here is the link to her website http://lazardo.smugmug.com/  Since it is the start of football season, and we are Houston Texans fans, I decided I wanted Jack to have his own little Houston Texans helmet.  Plus most of the clothes in his closet are blue, so it will match with what he wears!

When we got the helmet back from Paula (the artist) it was wrapped in bubble wrap, he had fun with that!

Day 1 of helmet wearing went well, Jack doesn't even seem to notice it is there.  Hopefully this will continue when he has to start sleeping in it.  So far, my only complaints were that his head was soaked with sweat when we took it off, and that was after wearing for only 1 hour!  Also, I instinctively kiss his head repeatedly every time I pick him up.  Today I was kissing plastic.  I will have to find some other sweet baby skin to kiss!