The Importance of Tummy Time
The Back to Sleep movement was started to help decrease Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) in babies. This means that infants are positioned on their backs at bedtime, rather than on their sides or stomachs, to prevent any disruption in their breathing. This positioning has indeed reduced the incidence of SIDS but, in some cases, has resulted in a child developing a misshapen head (plagiocephaly) or tight muscles on one side of the neck (torticollis).
Additionally, many children have not been exposed to sufficient tummy time, leading to resistance to being on their tummies. What can you do?
Steps to Take:
Make sure to incorporate tummy time in your infant's schedule to build head/neck and upper extremity muscles for future developmental skills.
Observe if your infant tends to look or rotate their head more to one side than the other.
Observe if your infant seems to have a “head tilt.”
Observe if your infant seems to use one hand or arm more than the other. This is often a result of head rotation away from the tighter muscle side. Infants are driven by vision, so they will attend to the hand opposite the tighter muscle side since this is the position of their head/neck.
If caught early, torticollis and plagiocephaly can be reversed!
Written by: Carol Rozzo, MS, OTR/L
Comments