Craniosynostosis: Heading in the right direction

Credit: Rachel Larson Photography When Ella Dorsey was born, her father Paul noticed something different about the shape of her skull. Her mother Cynthia, tired after the birth, assumed Ella’s head had gotten a little misshapen going through the birth canal, not an unusual thing to happen. But just before they were discharged, Cynthia noticed that a pediatrician she hadn’t yet met was paying particular attention to Ella’s head. “She was holding the baby, touching her head, constantly going over the baby’s skull,” she remembers. “I finally said to her, ‘Is the baby OK?’” That’s when Cynthia first heard the term craniosynostosis. She felt the bony ridge at the top of Ella’s head where the plates of her skull had fused together too early. Normally, these plates stay open into puberty to allow the brain room to grow, but in 1 of about 2,500 babies, the plates fuse together too early. “I’m hysterically crying, shocked, still not knowing what this condition is,” Cynthia recounts. “As a parent, I’m thinking, ‘She’s going to have issues that will last a lifetime.’ I probably cried more than I cried in my entire life.” The Dorseys were at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, which is connected by bridge to Boston Children’s Hospital. Two neurosurgical residents came across the bridge and spelled out Ella’s situation. She had sagittal craniosynostosis, the most common form in which the plates on the sides of the head fuse together at the top of ...
Source: Thrive, Children's Hospital Boston - Category: Pediatrics Authors: Tags: All posts Our patients’ stories craniosynostosis neurosurgery Source Type: news