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How do you fit a square peg into a round hole? It’s called molding. Not like the mold on bread or the infamous stuff health agencies are warning about growing in your home. 

The baby’s head is not particularly square, but it is divided into 4 sections or plates. (Don’t try serving meals on your baby’s head. It will not be received well by guests) Each plate is called anterior and posterior fontanelles. The lack of a plate in the middle is what creates the soft spot.

As the baby fits out of the pelvis the skull is pushed together overlapping one another to fit through the pelvis, birth canal, and perineum. Babies will experience heavy molding as they are being pushed out of a smaller pelvis. It is rare that baby’s truly cannot fit. This is called Cephalopelvic disproportion (CPD). Often this diagnosis is given when the baby has not had enough time to mold. Once diagnosed with CPD doesn’t mean you are going have it with subsequent births. Every birth, baby size, and the amount of relaxin your body produces to open the pelvis and relax ligaments, for the birthing process, is different. If you are diagnosed with CPD you will have a c-section. Research through www.google.com and www.ican.com; for further information on CPD and VBAC, vaginal birth after cesarean. Being born short or petite doesn’t mean you weren’t born to birth your baby.

Will my baby’s cone-head get stuck that way? Nope. Now some people’s head’s are a bit misshapen, but usually not grotesquely as the molding of some births. That is usually from being placed large amounts of time on their backs as infants, the way they sleep, genetics (bone growth), and that’s just the way God molded them.

Two of my favorite moldings are the cleft of the chin and the dimple below the nose. Those are where God placed His thumb on the chin, grasping the underside with the index exclaiming, “You little cutie!” The other was created when He placed his index on your lip saying, “Shhhh.” 

Next time Cone Heads is on TV just remember they had to go through lots and lots of molding to be born.


http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/002270.htm
http://www.breastfeeding.com/helpme/baby_fit.html
http://www.consultantlive.com/pediatrics/content/article/10162/10976
http://fammed.washington.edu/network/sfm/newborncaremodule.htm
(picture was taken from here. I couldn’t find a copy right)
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