Pediatric Orthopedist

Ellie's went to see Doctor Henderson today at UNC.  She had a blast!  I was a nervous wreck.  Being the paranoid idiot that I am I have been googling every imaginable issue that Ellie could have and all the possible things that could go wrong.  I was pleasently surprised when the resident working with Doctor Henderson came in and so kindly shared some of the things his 5 month old was going through.  The flat head and things like that.  The resident checked Ellie over and did alot of asking what I thought was wrong with her.  Do you think her head is mis-shappen?  What brings you here today?  What do you see as an issue?  I was surprised because my pediatrician reffered us there because there were issues I didn't expect them to want to know what I thought.  After explaining my concerns he completely reassured me that alot of things I had read about and had been told actually happen to more babies than people realize.  The uneven folds in Ellie's legs are completely normal, the doctor actually joked and said it's fat, it's not neccesarily going to match up in both her legs.  They want to see her back in two months to do an x-ray of her hips just to make sure everything is fine.  He said everything sounded and looked fine to him, but that an x-ray wouldn't hurt just to reassure us that there aren't any future problems.

As far as Ellie's misshapen head and Torticollis go he assured me that it was positional plagiocephaly.  Which basically means that Ellie's head is flattened because of her torticollis.  It simply is that her neck muscle needs to be stretched more so that her range of motion in her neck is better and she wont be prone to lay in the same spot at night.  Dr. Henderson and his resident said that babies that are good sleepers, those that sleep a significant amount of time almost right out of the gate often have positional plagiocephaly because they spend so much time "laying down" (sleeping) and aren't fussed with as much because they are sleeping.  He gave us some stretches to work on with her neck (most of which we have allready been doing) and he said once that range of motion gets better, her head will round out and be just fine!

I had to take a deep sigh of relief because I was so afraid that Ellie would have to wear a helmet, not because of what people would say but because of the mere cost.  Cranial headbands run anywhere from 3,000 to 6,000 dollars and unfortunately our insurance didn't cover them, because I did check into this prior to our appointment.

So thank you all for your prayers!

I finally got around to getting Ellie a floaty for the pool and wanted to test it out before we hit the pool and before we head to Michigan.  Since it was late, I decided why not try it in the bathtub?  So here's a picture of her floating in the bathtub!  SHE LOVED IT!!