When the neck muscles of your baby with torticollis tighten and contract, pain and discomfort are often felt, causing your baby to become restless. Torticollis can develop in various ways during infancy.

First, newborn babies may experience torticollis when maintaining a certain position in the womb or after a difficult birth. Acquired torticollis occurs shortly after birth, either due to some shortening of the SCM muscle due to the baby’s lying position or due to bruising during birth.

This informative blog post attempts to explain what to do if your baby has torticollis, which helps prevent uneven growth of the face and skull and improves the range of motion of your baby’s head and neck.

Torticollis Symptoms  

One of the biggest symptoms of torticollis is that your baby’s head tilts to one side so that the chin points towards the opposite shoulder. For example, the head tends to consistently tilt to the right, but the chin points toward the left shoulder.

You may notice that your baby has difficulty turning his head fully, especially to the opposite side, and shows a limited range of motion in the neck area.

Facial asymmetry can be seen

Visually, one side of your baby’s face may be flatter as it lies on its side, and its face may show a general asymmetry.

You may also feel a soft lump in the affected neck muscle. This is the result of a small tangle of fibers in one of the lateral neck muscles called the sterno-cleidomastoid muscle (SCM). Although this is a sign of torticollis,  it is nothing to worry about and this lump does not mean cancer  ; the lump will disappear by about six months.

If your baby always holds his head to one side or seems uncomfortable in the neck area and his head is tilted and you think he may have torticollis, the first thing you should do is get advice from your doctor. There are a number of other conditions that can cause this head position, so it is important to rule these out first.

Can Torticollis be Treated Using Correct Positioning Techniques?

If you have sought medical advice and your baby has been diagnosed with torticollis, there are several steps you can take to effectively treat the condition.

Physiotherapy can be significantly effective in treating torticollis, as gentle stretching of the sternocleidomastoid muscle will help restore a full range of motion in the neck. With early intervention and careful management, your baby will soon be able to hold his head straight and turn it equally in both directions.

Similar to repositioning techniques recommended for babies with plagiocephaly , neck stretches can also be incorporated into daily routines. For example:

While your baby is feeding, hold him so that he has to rotate his chin to feed, this will encourage your baby to continually tense his neck muscles throughout his daily feedings.

If your baby tends to sleep on a particular side, rotate the crib 180 degrees so your baby is facing the other direction.

Move toys from one side to the other so that your baby turns his head in the opposite direction during play.

If done regularly, the problem of stretches like this will be resolved within a few months.

If your baby has been diagnosed with plagiocephaly and torticollis and is less than four or five months old, the repositioning techniques mentioned above will eventually solve both problems. However, if there is no difference within a month or the deformity continues to worsen, further treatment may be required to return the head shape to the ‘normal’ range.

Treatment for moderate to severe forms of the condition may include the use of a plagiocephaly helmet, which gradually shapes the bones in the skull to correct the shape of the head as it grows. Treatment of plagiocephaly has been proven to be effective, safe and painless.

If you would like information about a plagiocephaly helmet for your little one or would like more information and advice on what to do if your baby has torticollis and/or plagiocephaly, check out our website or   call us on 0312 2832691 .