When alana was born, happiness and joy did too. I knew, was in love, couldnt stop looking at her. At around 4-6 weeks, noticed change to the shape of the back of her head, almost flat and her ears not parallel. She preferred to lie with her head turned to the right, movement in her neck seemed limited.

I mentioned my concerns to my health visitor but firstly was advised not to worry, and encourage more tummy time. Once she is sitting up and moving about it may get better. Alana bacame distressed when laid on her tummy and would basically faceplant the floor, struggling to lift her head. She is happy to sit up!

I raised more concern to our GP and were then referred to attend an craniofacial clinic, seen by a group of specialists. They explaineed 'moulding', skull condition also known as plagiocephaly. It's common amongst babies, their skulls are soft and due to babies being laid to sleep on their backs it has reduced risk of SID(sudden infant death syndrome) but moulding can occur.

Alana attends physiotherapy to help maximise movement in her neck but will not change the shape of her head.
There is a treatment available where alana will need to wear an invasive specially fitted hemlet for 23 hours a day and will attend regular check ups to monitor and examine the progress. As alana is now 9 months old she will need to undergo this treatment sooner than later for this to be mostly effective as she is growing all the time. Unfortunately the helmets are not funded by the NHS. We therfore need to fund this privately at a high cost to ourselves.

Headstart4babies is a charity supporting families. We would like to do some fundraising for the charity, raise awarness of plagiocephaly and raise funds to pay for Alana's treament. It's been a difficult decision to go forward with the treatment and ask for help with funding to pay for Alana's helmet.

Thank for reading alana story, if you can help in anyway, big or small it would be muchly appreciated .Thank you kindly.