A Baby's View of Birth

Every pregnant woman wonders -- often with a wince or two -- how a seven-, eight-, or even nine-pound baby manages to fit through an opening roughly the diameter of a bagel. But Mother Nature equips infants with a soft skull for a reason. "When you touch a newborn's head, it feels almost like tiles," says Richard Auerbach, MD, neonatologist at the Joe DiMaggio Children's Hospital, in Hollywood, Florida. "And where the grout would be are soft areas that allow a baby's head to remain pliable as it passes through the birth canal." The head of every baby born vaginally becomes misshapen to some degree during the birth process, but even the most pronounced "conehead" returns to normal within a few days.