Your Adorable New Baby Probably Has A Big Flat Head From Sleeping On Its Back

Thank you our best frenemy SCIENCE for giving us another study which I am so not sure about due to my own experience with babies and their cute little baby heads. According to USA Today, a new study has discovered that 47 percent of babies have flat spots on their head due to sleeping on their backs. My babies all slept on their backs, well, at least until they could roll over and reposition themselves, and I never noticed a flat spot and my doctor never mentioned it so maybe I was just lucky and never had any flat-head babies.

An education campaign launched in 1992 to have healthy babies sleep on their backs is credited with a 50% decrease in the infant mortality rate in the U.S. from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. But along with the decline has come greater awareness of a condition called positional plagiocephaly, in which an infant’s head is flattened or misshapen, from too much time in the back position in the first months of life. Other studies have put the rate of positional plagiocephaly (pronounced pley-jee-uh-SEF-uh-lee) anywhere from 3% to 61%. A new, large sample of 440 healthy infants finds 47% of babies ages 7 to 12 weeks had the condition.

This condition isn’t serious , and are “generally benign, reversible” anomalies that do not require surgical intervention.” More severe cases may require physical therapy and a skull reshaping helmet. The article suggests a lot of waking hour tummy time, carrying your baby with its head on your holder, and repositioning its crib so it changes positions on its own in order to look at things like doors and windows. Doctors still suggest you place the baby to sleep on its back to reduce the likelihood of SIDS.

Now whenever I encounter a baby I’m going to be looking at its tiny little baby head to see if it has this flat spot issue. Maybe my kids did have flat spots but I never noticed it, or maybe it was because I was always so found of sticking them in those little hats with ears. No matter what science says, I think we can all agree that hats with ears on babies is pretty much the cutest thing ever. I think we should conduct our own study showing the percentages of ooh’s and awww’s we witness when encountering babies in cute little hats.

(Image: ETSY)