Use of Mimos pillow significantly reduces the severity of the developmental plagiocephaly, study shows

A clinical result recently published in the health journal shows that use of a Mimos Pillow (a specially designed pillow for infants) reduces the severity of developmental plagiocephaly (DP) in young infants. The study by Anna Ohman was published in June 2013. 

According to Anna Ohman, the objective of the study was to test if specially designed pillows reduced the severity of developmental plagiocephaly. In this study, Anna used Mimos Pillow. According to the study, which involved 36 infants (21 male and 15 female of ages between zero and 2 months); “there was a significant decrease in CVAI for infants who had reduced pressure in the head. This indicates that the special Mimos pillow, designed to reduce pressure on the head, may decrease or prevent DP”. 

Anna Ohman made use of Mimos Pillow in her pilot study. Mimos Pillows are made by an organisation that promotes plagiocephaly awareness and prevention. 

Developmental plagiocephaly (DP) is a medical condition in which an infant’s skull is deformed as a result of prenatal or postnatal external moulding forces to the infant’s growing cranium. The medical condition forms when the infant spends most of the time in Supine (lying down with the face up). Developmental plagiocephaly flat head syndrome leads to infant head deformities, which include severe flattening of the back of the head, a head that is too short, and flattening of one side of the face. 

This study came at a time when other studies were supporting alternatives to expensive helmets. An example of these studies is: A Prospective Randomized Trial on Preventative Methods for Positional Head Deformity: Physiotherapy versus a Positioning Pillow by Jan-Falco Wilbrand, Maximilian Seidl, Martina Wilbrand, Philipp Streckbein, Sebastian Böttger, Joern Pons-Kuehnemann, Andreas Hahn, and Hans-Peter Howaldt. 

This study concluded that, – “Bedding pillows and stretching exercises both resulted in improvements in positional cranial deformation. For children with combined plagiocephaly and brachycephaly, improvement in cranial asymmetry was slightly greater when using bedding pillows versus stretching.” According to Dr. Jan-Falco Wilbrand, of the University of Giessen (study co-author), "these are probably easier options for some parents." 

A few weeks after Anna Ohman’s study, the Canadian Press published a study by Calgary researchers: Almost Half of Babies Now Have Flat Spots on Head. According to this study – by the age of 2 months, almost half of Canadian infants develop flat areas on the back of their heads. 

The flat areas are likely the result of spending time in supine to prevent sudden death syndrome, the study hints. The flat head syndrome occurs because the bony plates of an infant’s skull have not fused together. The flattening of the head has been proven to cause facial changes on the infant. According to Aliyah Mawji of the school of nursing at Mount Royal University in Calgary, "If they've got a flat spot on one side, what that likely means is that they've got the forehead protrusion on the same side and they also have a bit of ear shifting forward on the same side," 

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For more information on Mimos pillows, visit their website; check them out on Twitter, and Facebook. 

For more information on these studies visit the following links 
Anna Ohman's study 
Calgary research