Any experiences with positional plagiocephaly (or babies with misshapen heads)?

Factual Questions
1

My nephew is 4 months old and has a misshapen head, likely due to sleeping on his back. I did a bunch of research and it’s called positional plagiocephaly, and has become much more common since the early 1990s, when the “back to sleep” campaign was launched, advising parents to put their babies to sleep on their backs to prevent SIDS deaths.

Anyway, nephew’s head is flat in the back and has bulges on each side. When my brother & sis-in-law took him for his 4-month checkup, the doctor commented on it and referred them to a specialist which they will be seeing in a couple of days.

In my research, I found that a common treatment is a orthotic helmet, which the baby wears for 23.5 hours a day for several months. This site is for a clinic that treats plagiocephaly with helmets. This and this remind me most of my nephew’s head.

I’m wondering if anyone here has had any experience with babies with misshapen heads, whether it be your own kid or someone you know.

Obviously, we’re concerned at the thought of making the baby wear a helmet constantly for 3 months, but at the same time we don’t want him to grow up with a deformed skull. I know of a few people who had weird shaped heads that are really noticable, and I wouldn’t want nephew asking his parents when he grows up, “why didn’t you fix my head?”

Here’s a recent video of my nephew from a few days ago. There’s a good angle of his head at about :56 into the video, when he’s “dancing” on his dad’s lap. (Isn’t he darn cute?!!)

2

Just some asides: Now, I don’t think my nephew’s head is all that bad, but my mom is extremely alarmed, and can’t stop talking about it. She thinks they need to get his treatment ASAP.

The thing is, the sooner you start treatment, the less time it takes. Since he’s only 4 months, he would only have to wear the helmet for like 3 months, whereas if they started treatment at 6 months, me might have to wear it for 4-5-6 months.

Also, we know all about repositioning the baby in the crib, tummy time and all that. Yes, they have been doing all that religiously since he was born, and he still has a funny head.

Here’s a good article from the Washington Post about one family’s experience. Their kid had to wear the helmet for 6 months, since they started late.

3

I watched the YouTube video (and he is darn cute!), and I’m having a hard time seeing his head as misshapen. However, if his pediatrician commented upon it, that’s something else again.

When I was pregnant, my son was transverse, essentially pinned in place by fibroids. One of the fibroids pressed against his head. When he was born (via C-section), I thought he looked like Gumby.In addition to the angled shape of his skull, his ears were asymmetrical. One was pressed close to his head . The other was not.

We didn’t do anything about it. His head assumed a more rounded shape. His ears, however…I’m sure no one notices it but me. When I am standing behind him, I can see the asymmetry in his ears still.