Little fontanel in the newborn

For very many parents, the word "fontanel" sounds scary. Sometimes there are people who are afraid to touch the child's head again, fearing for this very "fontanel". And after hearing that the child was born with a very small fontanel, they start panicking. To save inexperienced parents from such unnecessary fears, we'll tell you everything about the fontanel and the little ones in particular.

What is fontanel and why is it needed?

Spring is an empty space between the bones of the skull, which is covered with a strong membrane. Each child at birth has 6 fontanelles, but we will only talk in detail about the sixth, the largest, since the rest are closed in the first weeks of the child's life.

The first thing that the fontanel helps is the birth of a baby. Passing through the narrow mother's thighs, the bones of the child's skull overlap one another, thereby reducing the head and facilitating the exit.

Elasticity of the skull is also useful in the first years of life, when the baby falls very often, learning to walk and learn this world. During the fall, the elasticity extinguishes the impact force, thereby protecting the child from serious injuries and consequences.

Through the fontanel with the help of neurosonography, doctors can examine and monitor the growth and condition of the child's brain. Which grows very fast and the elasticity of the fontanel is also important here. Very few people know, but at a high temperature, through the surface of the large fontanelle, the necessary cooling of the meninges takes place.

What does the small fontanel in the child mean?

The causes of small fontanel in infants can be the following:

1. Craniosynostosis. Disease of the bone system, which is observed early closure of the cranial suture, increased intracranial pressure, strabismus, hearing loss and growth of the entire skeleton. This disease can be both congenital, and appear due to rickets and abnormalities in the thyroid glands.
2. Anomalies of the development of the brain.

But it is worth saying that these diseases are very rare. And the question "why the child has a small fontanel?" Neuropathologists often answer that this is an individual feature of a person. Someone is born blond, some brunette - because of this, no one is going through. That's the size of the fontanel. It is believed that if the fontanel of the child is small, but the head circumference is normal, then the baby is healthy. Of course, in quality prevention is worth watching closely the child with a small fontanel. As it was already written before, the fontanel serves to soften the blow if the child suddenly bumps his head. Therefore, mothers need to be more attentive to their baby.

It would be desirable to notice, that many doctors, at small fontanel advise to not give vitamin D and to reduce quantity of the used dairy products. But in this case, moms need to inquire about the prevention of rickets, which, as is known, leads to a lack of calcium. That did not work out as in the Russian saying: "We treat one, the other is crippled!".