Head turn preference

 

Newborn infants generally exhibit preference for turning their heads to a particular side. But continued head turn preference can lead to head flattening of the preferred side. Unaddressed head turn preference can lead to other harder to treat conditions. This can include decreased development (e.g., visual and muscular) on the less preferred side and asymmetrical motor skills. A trained occupation therapist can assist the parent in addressing this condition. See here.

Excessive turn preference is a risk indicator for conditions like Torticollis. Studies have shown that head turn preference in the preterm infant is linked to medical severity (e.g., oxygen requirement at 36 weeks) and worse developmental outcomes when they reach the age of two.

We use a simplistic, passive measure to observe head turn preference in our EMMA tool (app.cribsy.us). Our AI tool automatically extracts facial landmarks from the crib video where the infant is in a supine position. The landmarks are: left and right eye, left and right ear, and nose. All five landmarks being present and visible indicates a center orientation (no head turn); with a hidden ear/eye indicating head turn to that side. The algorithm then just counts the percentage of the frames in the video the infant spends with head turned to either side.

You can take a look here on how this works in a real crib video: