What Is Torticollis? Torticollis in Babies & Infants Explained

Learn What Torticollis is, and How It Can Be Treated with Physical Therapy. Right & Left Side Torticollis Explained.
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Video Transcript
Today we're gonna go over some stretches to address torticollis. Torticollis is just a fancy word for tight neck muscles; so sometimes babies are diagnosed with either a right torticollis or a left torticollis and what that means is that if it's called the right torticollis it means that their right neck muscles are tight and the muscle that is tight is often called the sternocleidomastoid and that particular muscle does two functions: it will side bend your head to one side but then rotate your head to the other side; so if your baby is diagnosed with right torticollis they will have a preference for a right side bend so the right ear comes close to the right shoulder and they will want to look over their left shoulder (so left rotation). When we are focusing on stretches, we want to do the opposite of what that muscle is doing; so we would try and get the baby's neck to go into left side bend, so that the left ear goes to the left shoulder and they look over their right shoulder (so right rotation). if the baby is diagnosed with left torticollis it means that they will have a preference for their left ear to go to the left shoulder and they will want to rotate or look over their right shoulder; and again with those exercises we want to do the opposite:so we would try and stretch to the right side the right side Bend right ear to right shoulder and we would want to promote that left rotation. In the following videos that you guys can watch, I am going to demonstrate some stretches for a right torticollis. Again: the right torticollis is when a baby has a preference to tip their head to the right and look over their left shoulder and we want to do the opposite motions to help stretch that muscle; so in all of the videos you will see me trying to promote a left side Bend (so that's left ear to the left shoulder), and you will see me trying to promote right rotation (so looking over her right shoulder), and I'll show you a couple of stretches that you can do in standing sitting and even on your lap. Hopefully you guys can enjoy those videos and learn to do some fun stretches at home with your baby.