Plagiocephaly

Sometimes parents notice that their baby's head is kind of crooked on the back of the head or on the sides. In medicine this is called the term plagiocephaly, and in everyday life it can often be heard that the child has a curve or a flattened head.

Types of plagiocephaly

The flattened flat nape of the child can form in the womb if the pregnancy was multiple, or the child was in the pelvic presentation. Such a skull deformity in a child is called deformative plagiocephaly. But it happens that at birth the child's head had a regular round shape, and a month or two later became flattened. This indicates the development of this type of deformation, such as positional plagiocephaly. It appears when the infant often and for a long time stays in the same position, that is, the child simply lies on his head. This is not surprising, because the bones of the skull are very pliable, and lying almost all day. The diagnosis of positional plagiocephaly is being made today more and more often, because doctors strongly recommend that the baby be laid down on his back only to avoid the syndrome of sudden death.

This type of deformation has two varieties: frontal plagiocephaly and occipital plagiocephaly.

What to do?

Such an obvious external defect can not help but worry the parents, so they turn to the doctor. And this is correct, because it is necessary to correctly establish a diagnosis, because there are diseases with similar signs.

If plagiocephaly is confirmed, then you can ... do nothing. Precisely because to two years the shape of the skull normalizes itself. But if you want to see the baby's head in the correct form earlier, treatment of plagiocephaly can be done at home on your own. Just put the child in different positions during sleep, feeding, playing. Frequent changes in the position of the head will help the bones of the skull to take the correct position. But with the newborn especially you do not experiment. You can put him to bed at night so that only the occipital part touches the mattress. For this, you can use a small cushion under the neck. Some mothers turn the baby's head alternately in different directions, and to fix it put a diaper or a towel wrapped in a tube.

And do not worry in vain! Plagiocephaly is a temporary phenomenon and has absolutely no effect on the development of the child's brain.