Flat spots can form at any spot of the head (known as positional plagiocephaly), but frequently flatness occurs because infants are spending too much time on their backs outside of sleeping and not engaging in enough tummy time. This occurs in up to half of infants and rates have gone up in recent years as parents have learned to diminish SIDS risk by having babies sleep on their backs. However, it is a great deal more common issue for babies to have heads that are flattened, typically on the back, a condition known as plagiocephaly. “The absence of soft spots is a big problem.”Ĭraniosynostosis is relatively rare and affects only one out of every 2,000 to 3,000 children, according to estimates. “If you don’t have soft spots, that’s a medical condition,” Rowland says.
The absence of them, a genetic condition known as craniosynostosis, does not allow enough room for the brain to grow and can result in a permanently misshapen head, as well as visual and sleeping impairments, challenges eating, and mental development problems including a reduction in IQ. But these gaps in a baby’s skull, which close within completely within two years, are not just normal, they’re necessary. Most infants are born with soft spots, otherwise known as fontanels, which most parents know are not cause for concern. Just don’t think that you’re going to be able to use bumpology to locate a criminal impulse. While phrenology, a popular 19th-century pseudoscience that claimed skull shape dictated aspects of intelligence and personality, is now regarded as unscientific, racist, and generally ridiculous, the same principles kind of work when applied to little kids. For these tiny coneheads, their skulls typically adjust on their own within 24 to 72 hours.įrom there, an infant’s head shape starts providing clues if they have an underlying congenital issue or if they’re getting enough tummy time. “The head is often misshapen from the pressures of being born, so babies come out cone-headed and looking like little baby aliens,” Kathleen Rowland, a physician and professor at Rush Medical College, tells Fatherly. With vaginal birth specifically, a baby’s skull shape initially tells parents little beyond how cozy mom’s birth canal was. The birth of a child is a beautiful, unique experience that frequently ends with tears of joy and one simple, plaintive question: “Is the head supposed to look like that?” A child’s head shape when they first enter the world - oblong and vaguely alien - may be jarring, but it’s normal and no cause for concern.
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