GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — With wide eyes, five-month-old Kollyns Olson stared at her new baby helmet, custom-made by a 3D printer and designed to fix the flat spots on her little head.
"You could put a plate on it," said mother Maddie Olson, describing the shape of her daughter's skull as a newborn.
Born prematurely, Kollyns spent time in the NICU with her twin sister, Maeve, with whom she also shared a cramped womb, both of which caused her head to develop asymetrically.
Referred to Mary Free Bed Rehabilitation Hospital by a physical therapist, the Olsons opted to try out a new type of baby helmet to guide Kollyns' growth.
Developed by Orthomerica, the STARband 3D offers a lighter, more breathable alternative to the traditional baby helmet with wiffle ball-like holes in the design.
"I'm so thankful we had this option," Maddie Olson, a nurse, said. "I'm going to hope it goes well. She's a little bit of a spicy baby."
During the Thursday appointment, Melissa Cordial-Stout fastened the newly-printed helmet onto Kollyns' head, checking its fit.
"Alright, girl. Let's give it a go," she said to the baby, clipping together the helmet. "Oop, there's one side! Oop, there's two!"
"We can't push bones in," Cordial-Stout said in an interview with FOX 17. "We're lightly holding onto the areas that are too high, then allowing those low areas to catch up to them."
The helmet needed a few minor tweaks, and Cordial-Stout added additional padding and trimmed down a portion of the helmet with heavy machinery.
In a previous appointment, Mary Free Bed scanned Kollyns' head to create a 3D image used in the printing of the helmet.
"The word '3D' is such a buzzword," Cordial-Stout said. "I think this is the start of seeing it in the orthotics and prosthetics world."
For the next four months or so, Kollyns' will wear the helmet as much as she can, taking it off when her skull looks a little more like her sister's.
"It's been an amazing process," Olson said. "I would totally recommend it to anyone."
