01. March 2021

Torticollis is a condition in which one’s head tilts to one side while rotating to the other. This is caused by the tightening of a muscle called the sternocleidomastoid (whoa, say that ten times fast). This looks like a pretty wild word, so let’s break it down. The first part, sterno, refers to the sternum or breastbone. The second part, cleido, refers to the clavicle. The third part, mastoid, is the bony process of the skull that sits just behind the ear. We have two of these muscles, one...

05. July 2017

The ability of a baby to properly latch and feed is a complex suck-swallow-breathe sequence. This requires the function of 6 cranial nerves, 6 cervical nerves and a few thoracic nerves in order to coordinate as many as 31 muscles in the lips, cheeks, tongue, jaw, chin, soft palate etc. All of this soft tissue means that there can be involvement of many structures in problems of latch or abnormal suck. Let,s look at some of the muscles involved in moving the tongue. The three main muscles of the...