Putting my baby in a helmet was the toughest decision of my life —
I constantly worried if my son was in pain or uncomfortable. And don’t even get me started on the things strangers would say when they saw us walking down the street."We took his helmet off for this photo and I remember that I just wanted to kiss his head as soon as it came off." Photo: Courtesy of Deana Morton
Our paediatrician’s son wore a helmet as a baby, so she didn’t sugar-coat the process. “It’s going to be tough,” she said. “But your son might thank you for his round head later in life.” A week later, we were sitting in a room at the Children’s Hospital in Oakland with the prosthetics specialist. He measured our baby’s head with a scanner and showed us how helmet therapy worked. The baby’s head is confined to the helmet, and in areas where it’s flat, the helmet allows space for it to grow.
I followed the instructions, making my son wear the helmet for 23 hours a day with a measly one-hour break. When I took it off for the first time, his head was sweaty, his peach-fuzz hair matted to his head. More than anything in the world, I wanted my son to tell me how he felt in the helmet. Was he uncomfortable? In pain? Every time he cried or was unable to sleep, I blamed the helmet.
It felt like everyone was telling me that helmet therapy would be beneficial for my son in the future, and because ofor my logic. I felt like I was walking in a fog with a broken compass. I relied on my husband’s guidance through those early stages of motherhood because I believed he had a better handle on reality than I did. So my son continued to wear the helmet.
The most unexpected thing about the helmet, other than the roller coaster of emotions, was the assumptions people made about the reasons my son wore it. Some thought it was for seizures, while others thought it was because myThe most comforting thing was when mothers would come up to me and tell me that their child wore a helmet and how difficult the process was.
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