A new study revealed that helmet therapy is unnecessary for babies with skull deformities, because no significant changes have been seen in children who undergo treatment.
Positional skull deformation, also known as head flattening, occurs when a baby lies in the same position for a long time, which causes the head to be unintentionally deformed. Babies up to six months old are prone to this condition because their skull is still soft at that time.
Doctors usually recommend helmet therapy as a treatment for babies that are less than one year old. Babies will wear the corrective helmet 23 hours a day for an average of three months or more, depending on the severity of the deformity.
Researchers from the University of Twente in Netherlands led by Renske van Wijk studied the corrective helmets' effectiveness in improving the condition of babies aged five to six months who had positional skull deformation. They followed 84 babies diagnosed with moderate to severe skull deformation; half of them were subjected to helmet therapy while the other half were left to naturally heal for six months.
Two years later, the researchers measured the heads of the participants and compared the data to the measurements recorded prior to the study. They found that there was no significant difference between those who wore the helmets and those who had no treatment.
"Based on the effectiveness of helmet therapy and the high prevalence of side effects and high costs, we discourage the use of a helmet as a standard treatment for healthy infants with moderate to severe skull deformation," the researchers wrote in the press release.
Health experts agreed with the results of the study. Helmet therapy is also expensive - between $1,300 and $3,000 per session - rendering it controversial, since there has been no solid evidence of effectiveness prior to this study.
"There are definitely cases of infants with mild to moderate skull deformation who are treated with helmet therapy, and this study confirms and reaffirms that this is not necessary," said Dr. James J. Laughlin, an author of the policy statement on skull deformities for the American Academy of Pediatrics, during an interview with the New York Times.
Further details of the study can be read in the May 1 issue of the British Medical Journal.
