Goi Goi Baby Pillows

Created In Sweden

A Mother & Baby's Experience of the Goi Goi Baby Pillow

I am a Swedish mother of a baby girl, Joella born in October 2003 and living in the UK. Early on I noticed a flat area on the right side of the back of her head. Her head was not nicely round or symmetric as it should be. Joella always slept on her back with her head in a favourite position. When asking the Health visitor at my local clinic, I was told her head would grow back to normal in time and it would be less noticeable when her hair grows out more. Not satisfied with this answer, I discussed it with other mothers in my antenatal group and several of them saw the similar head flattening on their babies.

My friends in Sweden, also mothers of young babies told me that they had been recommended to use a baby pillow for their babies to sleep on from day one, and that this was standard practice in Sweden and recommended by the Swedish Department of Health. I was sent a Swedish cot size baby pillow for Joella to use, she was then four months old. She appeared to really like her pillow, so introducing it was not a problem. I made sure both her head and shoulders were positioned on the pillow.

After using the baby pillow for about 4 months, I saw a significant improvement; Joella’s head was now nicely round like a little pea. I must also add that as she suffers from colds from time to time, having her head slightly raised on the baby pillow seemed to help ease her breathing and sleeping.

Joella is now 11 months old and is still using her baby pillow, she still prefers to sleep on her back, but had she taken to turning around I would have removed the pillow.

After seeing the difference the baby pillow made to Joella’s head, I did some research in Sweden and found quite a bit of information about flat and distorted heads and the Swedish way of preventing it by using the baby pillow. I saw this as an opportunity to import the Swedish baby pillow to the UK to help other little ones with the same problem.

I am still not convinced that the babies’ heads always correct itself with time. I see some little ones now around 1 year and they still have the same flattening on their heads. Although the flattening is visually less noticeable now when the older babies have more hair, but I was not satisfied with this as a solution.

Anna Akerlund with daughter Joella.