![]() I was worried, and since by then we were back home in Pavones (a 6 hour drive from our doctor in the capital of San Jose, Costa Rica) I sent pictures to our pediatrician to ask his opinion. Nevertheless, I couldn’t find anything on the Internet to convince me that ridges were ok and normal at 1 month old. Those observations made me think the suture couldn’t be fused. It didn’t seem like one ridge down the center but more that one bone would be higher than the other and sort of stick up along the suture, causing the appearance of a ridge. The ridge also changed based on which side he was laying on. The only thing (besides that forum) that gave me hope that he was fine was that applying gentle pressure to the edge of the bones made them move independently. Multiple parents on that one forum shared stories and even photos, but everything else I read pointed to craniosynostosis. I did find one forum of others talking about the ridges on their baby’s head that the doctors had declared normal. My husband thought I was just being a paranoid mama spending way too much time staring at his head, but I had become very worried. How bad it is depends on which of the bones – which sutures – are fused, but in most cases the treatment is surgery. It’s rare, only 1 in 2000 babies are afflicted. This leads to all kinds of problems including facial deformities, vision and hearing problems, as well as developmental delays. With the bones fused, the brain cannot grow properly. It refers to a situation where the various bones in the infant head fuse prematurely. If you search “bony head, newborn” or “newborn head ridge”, essentially the only thing that comes up is Craniosynostosis. I wondered if they were normal and started googling. Of course I know that there is a lot of variation in baby heads and it is common for heads to be misshapen, particularly in the first day or two after birth, but at two weeks old these features seemed even more obviously apparent. I could easily see and feel a ridge along the middle of the top of his head running from front to back, and even along the back of his head running side to side. The bones seemed really prominent, much more so than I remember from my older daughter. Soleo Lanz Obermeyer, 1 day old.Ī few days later, at just over a week old, I started to think that maybe his head didn’t look quite right. and the doctor agreed with the midwife that he was perfectly healthy. Five days later I took him to his first pediatrician appointment. The full story: On September 25th I gave birth to a big 9lb 3oz baby boy after a very short labor at home. In short, here is the info I searched all over the internet to find: A bony head or noticeable ridges does not necessarily indicate craniosynostosis! I want to put this out there for any other mamas who might be going through what I recently went through.
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