Headbands, babies and cranial bones!

Don’t get me wrong, headbands are ADORABLE on babies, but unfortunately they are not the best for the baby's head. Did you know that a baby’s cranial bones are not fully fused at the time of birth? That’s right, a baby has sutures between their cranial bones that are made up of soft and flexible tissue. The sutures consist of coronal, sagittal, lambdoid and metopic sutures, each within certain cranial bones.

As an adult, our sutures are fused and no longer able to move as freely as they once were. But as for a baby, their sutures allow for further growth and development of the cranium and facial bones. Have you ever heard the saying “they’ll grow into their head?” That is because the infant cranium is shaped differently than an adult cranium. The infantile brain and nervous system is still growing and developing, therefore the cranium (which houses the brain) needs to be flexible and adapt to new shapes and forces so that the baby does indeed “grow into their head.”

Headbands on an infant are one of many examples of this unwanted pressure over the flexible sutures. They cause an increase in force in these already very sensitive areas for a baby, and can cause developmental problems in they are left on for long periods of time. Please be cautious when putting these on your little baby, and be sure not to leave them on for long periods of time!