What Forms on the Head When Birth Is Hard on the Baby

​Past Laura Jana, Doctor, FAAP & Jennifer Shu, MD, FAAP

Many parents have been mistakenly led to believe that all newborns are built-in moving picture-perfect, with pretty little round heads. Allow us just say that for anyone who has gone through or will experience vaginal delivery, it is zip short of a blessing that a baby's skull is made up of soft bony plates that are capable of compressing and overlapping to fit through the narrow birth canal—a process referred to as molding.

Shaping upward

For some babies—such as those who "drop" well in advance of being born (in other words, settle themselves head first deep into their female parent's pelvis well in advance of delivery), or those who must endure long labors and narrow birth canals—the event is oft a newborn head shape that more than closely resembles a cone than a nice round ball.

If you run your fingers over your newborn's skull, you lot may as well find that yous can feel ridges forth the areas where the bony plates of the skull have overlapped. In short, slightly misshapen heads are quite common right after nascency.

Fortunately, over the side by side several weeks the bones of your baby's skull will almost assuredly circular out and the ridges volition disappear—assuming, that is, that your babe doesn't spend as well much time on their back with his caput in any one position. This is a common but easily avoidable crusade for the development of a flat back or side of the caput known as plagiocephaly.

The soft spot

You lot volition notice one to two areas on your baby'southward head that seem to exist lacking bony protection. These soft spots, referred to every bit fontanelles (anterior for the larger one in the front, posterior for the smaller and typically less noticeable one in the back), are normal gaps in a newborn's skull that will allow your baby'south brain to grow chop-chop throughout the next year.

Many parents are afraid to impact these soft spots, but you can rest assured that, despite their lack of a bony layer, they are well protected from typical solar day-to-day baby handling. Other things to know about the soft spot(due south) include:

• In young infants, a sunken soft spot (when combined with poor feeding and dry diapers) can suggest dehydration. Our advice to you: Don't read too much into this considering it can be a subtle finding or sometimes exist nowadays in normal babies. Instead, brand certain you lot have a good grasp on how to recognize dehydration and check with your doctor if you have any concerns—with or without a sunken soft spot.
• In some instances, the soft spot on the top of your baby's caput may seem to exist pulsating. There is no need to worry—this move is quite normal and just reflects the visible pulsing of blood that corresponds to your baby's heartbeat.

Bumps & bruises

In addition to molding, a bit of swelling or bruising of the scalp immediately post-obit commitment is not uncommon for newborns. The swelling normally is nigh noticeable at the top back role of the caput and is medically referred to every bit a caput (short for caput succedaneum). When bruising of the head occurs during delivery, the result can exist a boggy-feeling area, chosen a cephalohematoma.

Bruising and swelling are commonly harmless and go away on their own over the beginning days and weeks, simply can be a contributing factor for jaundice.

Gone today, but hair tomorrow

Sure, babies are sometimes born with full heads of hair, but it's far more probable for them to be born with little to none. And those with hair today are likely to find information technology gone tomorrow. That'southward because whatsoever pilus your infant is born with is probable to thin out significantly over the next few months earlier ultimately being replaced with "real" pilus. It is also entirely possible that whatever hair your newborn does have will change color past several shades and several times over their lifetime.

More information

• How Your Newborn Looks
  
• Uneven Caput Shape in Babies: Causes and Treatment of Craniosynostosis

About Dr. Jana Laura A. Jana, Md, FAAP, is a pediatrician and mother of 3 with a faculty appointment at the Penn State University Edna Bennett Pierce Prevention Research Center. She is the author of more than 30 parenting and children'due south books and serves every bit an early childhood expert/contributor for organizations including the Maternal and Kid Health Bureau, Primrose Schools, and United states News & World Report. She lives in Omaha, NE.

Well-nigh Dr. Shu Jennifer Shu, MD, FAAP serves every bit the medical editor of HealthyChildren.org and provides oversight and direction for the site in conjunction with the staff editor. Dr. Shu is a practicing pediatrician at Children's Medical Group in Atlanta, Georgia, and she is as well a mom. She earned her medical degree at the Medical College of Virginia in Richmond and specialized in pediatrics at the Academy of California, San Francisco. Her experience includes working in private practice, as well as working in an academic medical center. She served as director of the normal newborn nursery at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in New Hampshire. Dr. Shu is as well co-author of Food Fights and Heading Home with Your Newborn published by the American Academy of Pediatrics.

The information contained on this Spider web site should non be used as a substitute for the medical care and communication of your pediatrician. There may be variations in treatment that your pediatrician may recommend based on individual facts and circumstances.

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Source: https://www.healthychildren.org/English/ages-stages/baby/Pages/Your-Babys-Head.aspx

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