About two percent of babies born in the US have a condition known as congenital torticollis. How is it treated? We get suggestions from pediatrician and Baby 411 author, Dr. Ari Brown. The condition is a stiffness in the neck muscles. Baby Zoey demonstrates a few exercises that can help relieve torticollis or wryneck. Just a few seconds of stretching a day can really help improve torticollis. The techniques for treating the neck muscles can be completed in just six weeks. Preemies with torticollis can be treated in this was as well. Though it sounds bad, torticollis is fairly common and easily treated. Clay Nichols hosts. Ep 805 is brought to you by BabyBjorn

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Host: Did you know that between one-half and two percent of babies born in this country are born with a condition known as Congenital Torticollis. What exactly is Torticollis and how is it treated? Today in The Lab we'll tell you all about it.

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Today's episode is brought to you by Baby Bjorn, Swedish design, dad-friendly, Baby Bjorn.

Now, of course, any time your baby is diagnosed with a condition, it's going to be a cause of concern, particularly when it's got a really ugly name like "Torticollis". It sounds like turtles are involved somehow.

Is it really a serious condition? Well, not ordinarily, and the treatment is relatively simple. To get more information on this condition we talked to pediatrician and Baby 411 author, Dr. Ari Brown.

Dr. Ari Brown: I'm Dr. Ari Brown, with the 411 on Torticollis. This is baby Zoe here to demonstrate. Torticollis is a stiff neck muscle which limits a baby's ability to move her head and neck. There are few exercises you can do at home to help relieve that neck stiffness. We're going to try them here.

"All right, Zoe, I know this is not fun." It's not fun to do this, by the way. The first exercise is to take the ear and try to bring it to the shoulder. So you're going to tilt the head, "I know", for 10 seconds, and hold that pose. Then you repeat that three times. Then you do the same thing with the other ear to the other shoulder. "Fine now, here we'll tilt this way." You do that three times.

The other exercise is to take the chin and try to bring it to the shoulder. So you'll turn the head straight away and look one direction. And you hold that for 10 seconds and repeat three times. You do the same thing on the other side. [To Zoe] "I know you're kicking me and I deserve that."

What it does is it helps relax those neck muscles. If you've tried to do this at every diaper change for six to eight weeks and you don't have any success, then it's time to call in a professional and get a physical therapist to help.

Host: Now, I know personally that this diagnosis can cause some anxiety because my tiny preemie was born with Torticollis but responded very well to treatment. Now he's a giant teenager who is perfectly healthy and his head is on straight, physically.

We want to thank our sponsors, Baby Bjorn, makers of the safest and healthiest front carriers on the market, Baby Bjorn.

If you've got any thoughts on Torticollis leave a comment on this video or go to dadlabs.com and join the conversation going on there. Thanks very much. That's all for us today. You're in The Lab.