Positional Plagiocephaly and Craniosynostosis: What’s the Difference?

Posted on January 24, 2011 by jessg

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is” width=”300″ height=”258″ />People often confuse positional plagiocephaly and craniosynostosis. It’s a fairly easy mistake to make — they’re quite similar to one another — so we’ve compiled a list of the differences:

Positional plagiocephaly

The ear on the affected side is typically pushed forward toward the face.

 Craniosynostosis

The ear on the side of a prematurely fused lambdoid suture is pulled toward the back of the head.
There is usually compensatory bulging of the forehead on the side of the “flat spot.” There is typically no bulging (if no other suture is involved).
The skull is more in the shape of a parallelogram (like a crooked rectangle). Because of this, positional plagiocephaly is called “parallelism”. The skull is shaped more like a trapezoid shape (wider in front, narrower in back).

Now that you know these differences, you should have no trouble at all deducing whether your baby has positional plagiocephaly or craniosynostosis. Of course, as we’ve stressed before, the only way to know for sure is by bringing him or her to the doctor for a professional evaluation. Once it’s been confirmed that your baby has one of these, you can move forward and start discussing treatment plans.

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