A baby's skull is made up of several bony plates that are not yet fused at birth. This is what allows the skull to compress during delivery and then expand afterward. It also means that external pressure applied consistently to any one part of the skull during the months when the bones are still soft can gradually reshape that area. Plagiocephaly is the result of this process — a flat spot that develops from sustained, asymmetrical pressure on the skull in the early months of life. The earlier in life it develops, the more potential there is for the skull to round out naturally as the baby grows, provided the positional factors driving it are addressed.
The window during which the skull reshapes most readily is roughly the first year of life, with the greatest plasticity in the first six months. This is why families are sometimes told to act quickly, and why parents at Beacon Clinic of Chiropractic in Grover Beach who come in when their baby is two or three months old are working with more room than those who come in at seven or eight months. Dr. Bronstein evaluates plagiocephaly in infants from San Luis Obispo and across California's central coast at any age, with an honest conversation about what the timing means for what can be expected from structural care.
