Craniosynotosis Research Paper

An infant’s skull is composed of six cranial bones separated by strong fibrous joints called sutures. The coronal suture runs from one ear to the other ear and separates the frontal bone from the two parietal bones. The sagittal suture separates the two parietal bones. The lambdoidal suture separates the two parietal bones and the occipital bone. There is also the metopic suture that divides the two halves of the frontal bone in children. This suture usually disappears by the age of six. Lastly there is the squamosal suture that separates each temporal bone from each parietal bone. In normal cases the sutures in an infant’s skull fuse around the age of two or three, allowing the child’s brain to rapidly grow with the room needed. Craniosynostosis is a birth defect that causes one or more of these sutures in the skull to close prematurely. Craniosynostosis occurs in one out of two thousand live births and affects males twice as often as females. When these sutures prematurely fuse, it prevents the brain from growing and developing in the space needed. Some symptoms of craniosynotosis are unusual head shape, slow or no growth in head size as the baby gets older, earlier disappearance of the soft spot, and increased skull pressure. There are different types of craniosynostosis and each one causes a …show more content…
Plagiocephaly also known as coronal synostosis is the premature fusion of the left or right side of the coronal suture. This fusion causes the forehead and brow on the affected side to stop growing. The affected side would appear flattened and the opposite side to be more prominent. Trigonocephaly is the fusion of the metopic suture which causes a prominent ridge running down the forehead. This causes the forehead to be pointed in a triangular shape. The most common type of craniosynostosis is scaphocephaly which is the fusion of sagittal suture. This causes a long and narrow