WHAT IS PLAGIOCEPHALY?

Positional plagiocephaly is a deformation of an infant's head (one-sided flat head) caused by continuous pressure on one part of a baby's skull. 

Positional plagiocephaly can develop at two different times in early life.  The first time is at birth from malposition in the womb.  The second occurence may develop within the first 5 to 20 weeks of life and is as a result of infant's favoring one side head position.  This second type of plagiocephaly is what is on the rise and what parents can easily prevent 99% of the time by employing Dr. Plagio's preventative techniques.

This condition seems to affect infant boys more than girls and has a higher incidence in low birthweight infants.

The newborn infant's skull is composed of seven individual bones separated by sutures.  This arrangement accomodates transient skull distortion during birth and permits future growth of the brain, the volume of which quadruples during the first two years of life. 

The sutures will be open in the first few weeks of life but will close as months pass by. If the sutures close before the head growth is complete, the face and head of the child will start to experience deformities.  Similarly, if the head is subject to pressures that cause an abnormal position for the skull bones, the abnormality will be frozen into place after 8 ir 9 months of life.  

Plagiocephaly relates to the lanbdoidal suture which is located on the back of the head.  An infant affected by plagiocephaly has a head showing a persistant flat spot on the back or on the side of the head with one the ears moving forward 



Positional Plagiocephaly refers to a deformation of the head in infants that tend to lay their head in the same position. The pressure applied on the skull at the point of contact places forces on the skull that shift the unfused skull bones. Positional Plagiocephaly may happen in the first 2-20 weeks after birth.

For information on preventing positional plagiocephaly, see Preventing Plagiocephaly: TOTS.

Here is an example of a child with positional plagiocephaly.  Notice the asymetry at the back of the head.  It is accepted that the forward postion of one ear is the most telling identifyable feature of positional plagiocephaly (left  ear in our illustration). 

Therefore, one of the indicators used by family doctors, pediatricians, and cranyo surgeons, is the distance from the nose to the ear measured on each side.  If the two measurements are different by more than 5 mm, the infant has plagiocephaly.