Thursday 16 August 2012

big head

Skittle has a big head. A really big head! His big head makes him look older than he is and bigger than he is and I'm fairly sure it contributes to how heavy he is.

He is in 0-3 month trousers, 3-6 month tops and vests and 9-12 months hats. His head circumference measurement is so far off the graph for corrected age it would happily land inside the average region for an 11 month old.



His head hasn't always been too big. At 3 months actual it was happily resting on the 50th centile but in the 2 months that followed it jumped dramatically, cue medical professional panic.

A couple of weeks ago he had an MRI scan under sedation. It was so sad to see him being sedated, he didn't like it one bit. He soon slumped into my arms feeling oddly heavy and was attached to a monitor. I carried him down for the children's day ward to the imaging department and popped him inside the head chamber for the MRI scanner. Quite worrying watching your little baby closed inside a cage looking thing and sliding into an MRI tube. We stood with ear plugs in staring at his feet and glancing at the oxygen sats reading every few seconds. 


Eventually it was over and we went back upstairs for him to sleep off the sedation. Last week we received a summary in the post that made no sense and merely stated 'diagnosis: not sure'. Great, that's helpful.

When we got in to see his consultant she reassured us that his brain matter looks fine. Good news. But he does have mild ventricular dilation and far too much spinal fluid on the top of his brain. Not so much that they want to do anything about it now. Which is a relief. But enough for her to send the scan off to GOSH/St Toms for a second opinion. So for the time being his big head will just be monitored. Comfortingly the last measurements showed an increase in size that was inline with a normal rate of growth.

Hopefully he'll just grow into his head as it were.  But it's hard not to notice, he still doesn't have great head control, although it has improved over the last few weeks. He has just managed to muster up the core strength to be able to lift his head from the ground but can't support it when sitting.



 Skittle rest assured, no matter what size your head is, muma thinks you're the cutest boy ever.

4 comments:

  1. Joseph has always had an oversized head. He's 3 now and put a hat on the other day which I bought without looking at the size.....7 years old.

    I always have to buy baggy clothes to get them over his head.

    I've found as he has grown more hair the size discrepancy doesn't look as bad!

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  2. Oh! And the drs have never minded that it's too big? Did he have trouble supporting it when learning to sit/stand?

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  3. Hi, I came across your blog whilst looking at pictures on Google and got dragged in lol V cute baby, you mentioned GOSH, if you're in London I would highly recommend you contact http://www.thewestover.com/therapists/simon-prideaux - you can also see him at Kings Cross. Worth a phone call if nothing else but I've personally seen some amazing results (I'm a Lactation Consultant that has worked with him at the Kings Cross drop in)
    AA

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  4. How very cute skittle is, all he has to do now is stop terrifying his mummy and all would be fine! Roo has notably more trouble controlling her big old preemie head until she was around four and a half months corrected. I remember the day she learned to control it because we popped in to weatherspoons for lunch and she kept moving it from side so side as shed never heard so many voices. There you go, top tip : weatherspoons for head control! :D

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