Your baby's head is misshapen? It'll probably go away

Babies are born with soft skulls for good reason. After all, their relatively large heads have to pass through the narrow birth canal. The bony plates of their skull only fuse together gradually, allowing room for their brains' rapid growth during the first year of life.

Nevertheless, parents who notice a flat spot on the back or side of their infant's head in the early weeks after birth are typically alarmed. They needn't be though, since skull deformities of this kind are quite normal.

Almost all infants have head asymmetries during the first five months of their lives, according to the Cologne-based Professional Association of Paediatricians (BVKJ). In most cases they're harmless and temporary, it says.

Plagiocephaly is the medical term for a flattened area on a baby's soft skull. It frequently develops between the ages of four and 12 weeks as a result of a baby's preference to lie and sleep with their head in the same position.

One way parents can help counteract this is to encourage the baby, by speaking to them or attracting their attention with a toy or the like, to turn their head to the unaccustomed position, advises the BVJK's Dr Ulrich Fegeler.

Instances of plagiocephaly have increased, the BVJK says, ever since the recommendation that babies sleep on their backs as a safeguard against sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), the sudden and unexplained death of a baby younger than 1 year old.

Do flattened areas on a baby's skull ever require treatment? Fegeler: "If the deformity doesn't regress in the first three to five months of the child's life, a paediatrician will examine whether there's an underlying muscle, bone or other issue that needs to be treated."

In cases of severe deformities, the doctor may prescribe a moulding helmet. The baby must then wear the custom-fitted helmet for 23 hours a day, typically for two to six months.