SCREENING FOR POSITIONAL HEAD DEFORMITIES IN INFANTS UNDER ONE YEAR

Abstract

Aim of the study: The main aim of the work was to evaluate the incidence of positional head deformities in infants under 1 year.
Methods: A total of 112 infants up to 1 year of age, who were born from 36+0/7 gestational week to 42+0/7 g.t., were included in the study. and who were born breech vaginally or by caesarean section, without the use of a vacuum extractor or forceps. At the time of inclusion in the study, they were not older than 1 year of age.
All infants in the monitored group had a head photograph taken as part of the initial examination, from which the cephalic indices were subsequently evaluated using the Scodiac program to determine the type and severity of the head deformity. Data collection took place multi-centeredly in 4 outpatient physiotherapy departments in non-state healthcare facilities in the Czech Republic in the period from 1/12/2020 to 30/11/2021.
Results: Of the infants sent for examination to physiotherapists, 63% were boys - this difference was statistically significant (P-value is 0.01; <0.05). From the obtained data, a statistically significant dependence of the severity of the head positional deformity on the age of the infant at the time of the first examination was demonstrated, with more severe deformities when caught in the later trimesters than in the first trimester (P-value is 0.002; <0.05).
Conclusion: Based on the results of this study, we can state that the risk group for the development of positional head deformity in infants is the male gender and that early diagnosis of infant head positional deformity prevents the progression of the infant's skull deformation.
Keywords: deformational plagiocephaly, brachycephaly, diagnosis of positional deformities, cephalic indices