http://jccponline.com/Marinus.html

I had a chance to hear the author of this article speak at an online conference recently and he had many insights that were not fully fleshed out in this research paper. He is a fellow chiropractor in the UK and specializing in pediatrics. While many published researchers no longer are actively in clinical practice, he still very much was. And thus his insights were invaluable.

Parents who present to our office for chiropractic care of their new baby will often be concerned about abnormal head shapes and “flat spots”. The traditional medical pediatric standard for what is a benign versus medically significant abnormal head shape is pretty generous. Unless there is concern over premature closing of the head sutures, or other gross distortion of the head shape and size that could compromise brain growth, the approach is to spend less time laying on the back and let the child “grow out of it” (or grow hair over it).

The chiropractic approach tends to lower the threshold of when we feel the need to intervene, and the reason is that we connect the deviation from optimal head shape to neurological function and development. Practicing chiropractors and craniosacral therapists have empirically observed the causal relationship for a long time, but it is always good to get reinforcement from a solid research paper. I wanted to note two particular observations:

• The neurological function most affected by the head flattening was motor development. Parent should keep this in mind if they have a child that seems to be behind siblings or peers in fine or gross motor skills, and has a history of misshaped head.

• Head flattening develops from a combination of too much time spent laying on the back (sleep on back but play time on tummy), as well as abnormal rotation, or flexion extension of the cervical spine. The latter being very common with even minor straining during birth, and responds well to chiropractic care.

Remember that a flat head is not primarily a cosmetic issue. You cannot cover up neurological delay with a good patch of hair.