6 ms·

3D imaging of fetal head molding and brain shape changes during labor

37 points by okket 7y ago

lurquer 7y ago
That's bizarre! A lot of my friends coincendtslly had babies around the same time. The C-section babies were adorable with perfectly round heads, while the vaginals looked like Kanamits (obscure Twilight Zone reference). Of course, all the strange-shaped heads morphed back to normal after a few weeks. (What was particularly odd was one friend whose vaginal baby's head was, like a C-section baby, perfectly spherical... a few crude jokes were made regarding the implications...)
- Raphmedia 7y ago
  That's to be expected. It's how births are. When babies pass through the mother's birth canal, the tight fit temporarily squashes their heads, elongating their flexible skulls and changing the shape of their brains. The child with a round head either went through a wider birth canal or was smaller. Joking about a woman's genitalia postpartum is simply distasteful.
  - BubRoss 7y ago
    I think the joke was about events before pregnancy. Getting offended so easily is simply distasteful.
londons_explore 7y ago
If I'm reading this right... Skull and brain is crushed during natural birth, but usually recovers its normal size afterwards. I wonder if 'lack of crushing' can be bad for C-section births?
- SketchySeaBeast 7y ago
  > I wonder if 'lack of crushing' can be bad for C-section births? I don't think they mentioned anything about anything in the "pro" for the deformation - in fact "These MRI findings suggest that the fetus is subjected to greater stress than previously thought, which could explain the high incidence of asymptomatic brain hemorrhages and retinal hemorrhages found after normal vaginal delivery." This is something we've adapted to deal with, it's not an ideal event.
  - londons_explore 7y ago
    Thats what I mean - there might be benefits too. For example, a bit of crushing might trigger damage-response in the brain which leads to more growth. Since this has been the case for millions of years, evolution might well use what appears to be a disadvantage as an advantage in some cases. Just like there are some kinds of tree which grow better with occasional forest fires.
    - SketchySeaBeast 7y ago
      There may be, but we'll need evidence for that. Right now we just see the trauma. Not everything that nature does is a benefit - evolution is a pragmatist. Our bipedal nature and need for a big brain requires certain sacrifices to be made. Our ability to make our skulls deform enough to give birth is the only evolutionary advantage it needs to give us to justify it - it's hard to survive as a species if you can't give birth. I wouldn't make a jump to "cesareans are bad" just because it may be right, especially without any evidence from this evidence being for that, and the evidence against being "brain trauma".
      - officialjunk 7y ago
        My medical friends say that csection births can have complications with fluids not draining fully from the respiratory system and sinuses etc leading to infections. This is one benefit of the squishing during natural birth to help squeeze out fluids where it is no longer needed. Sorry I don’t have anything to cite. edit: misspelled “birth”
    - pjc50 7y ago
      Not really - we've just settled into an equilibrium where our heads are as large as possible with an ""acceptable"" death rate of maternal and child death and injury from the process. (I'm reminded of one of the plot items in the Vorkosigan saga, the great feminist space opera series, which has decantable artificial wombs - the ultimate labour-saving invention.)
- Waterluvian 7y ago
  So nobody told me about this but when my first was born his head was a cone. Like it was really really squished and tall. I was positive he was severely deformed and with all the courage I could muster, calmly asked, "first time dad question. What can you tell me about the shape of his head?" The nurse chuckled and assured me it was normal and would get round in hours. Tl;Dr: yes they can get very squished.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
rolleiflex 7y ago
One of the evolutionary theses about why our brains are at the size they are, and no larger / smaller is that we’ve hit the hard limit on what can exit a female body without killing either the parent or the baby. This paper adds a lot of credence to that theory.
- user982 7y ago
  Absent selective pressure for wider-hipped women.
  - mundu_wa_hinya 7y ago
    This might explain why we see a significant number of birth deformation disabilities in East Africa. Recent migrations (past 0.5k-3k years) might have an impact. For example, it is thought that some parts of East Africa were originally occupied by a pygmy population. They inter married with the migrating Bantu (typically 1.5-1.7m) who also inter married with the Nilotes (Very tall. Masai, Samburu, Luo...). So you now have a descendant population with large variances in height, waist size and so on.
- burfog 7y ago
  Size incompatibility is thought to have killed neanderthal women who paired up with non-neanderthal men.
- sokoloff 7y ago
  Sounds plausible. I have an extended family member who was born after a multi-day labor [in the 40s] where the doctor asked of the father “do you want the baby or your wife to go home, because they’re not both going to make it”. He picked his wife; his wife picked the baby; both went home, but my aunt had life-long deficits from the multi-day traumatic labor and a forceps extraction.
  - miemo 7y ago
    thank god they picked both
- 7y ago
pimlottc 7y ago
Hats off to the women who agreed to give birth inside a MRI for this study. Wow!

37 points by okket 7y ago

That's bizarre! A lot of my friends coincendtslly had babies around the same time. The C-section babies were adorable with perfectly round heads, while the vaginals looked like Kanamits (obscure Twilight Zone reference). Of course, all the strange-shaped heads morphed back to normal after a few weeks. (What was particularly odd was one friend whose vaginal baby's head was, like a C-section baby, perfectly spherical... a few crude jokes were made regarding the implications...)

Raphmedia 7y ago
That's to be expected. It's how births are. When babies pass through the mother's birth canal, the tight fit temporarily squashes their heads, elongating their flexible skulls and changing the shape of their brains. The child with a round head either went through a wider birth canal or was smaller. Joking about a woman's genitalia postpartum is simply distasteful.
- BubRoss 7y ago
  I think the joke was about events before pregnancy. Getting offended so easily is simply distasteful.

londons_explore 7y ago

If I'm reading this right... Skull and brain is crushed during natural birth, but usually recovers its normal size afterwards. I wonder if 'lack of crushing' can be bad for C-section births?

SketchySeaBeast 7y ago
> I wonder if 'lack of crushing' can be bad for C-section births? I don't think they mentioned anything about anything in the "pro" for the deformation - in fact "These MRI findings suggest that the fetus is subjected to greater stress than previously thought, which could explain the high incidence of asymptomatic brain hemorrhages and retinal hemorrhages found after normal vaginal delivery." This is something we've adapted to deal with, it's not an ideal event.
- londons_explore 7y ago
  Thats what I mean - there might be benefits too. For example, a bit of crushing might trigger damage-response in the brain which leads to more growth. Since this has been the case for millions of years, evolution might well use what appears to be a disadvantage as an advantage in some cases. Just like there are some kinds of tree which grow better with occasional forest fires.
  - SketchySeaBeast 7y ago
    There may be, but we'll need evidence for that. Right now we just see the trauma. Not everything that nature does is a benefit - evolution is a pragmatist. Our bipedal nature and need for a big brain requires certain sacrifices to be made. Our ability to make our skulls deform enough to give birth is the only evolutionary advantage it needs to give us to justify it - it's hard to survive as a species if you can't give birth. I wouldn't make a jump to "cesareans are bad" just because it may be right, especially without any evidence from this evidence being for that, and the evidence against being "brain trauma".
    - officialjunk 7y ago
      My medical friends say that csection births can have complications with fluids not draining fully from the respiratory system and sinuses etc leading to infections. This is one benefit of the squishing during natural birth to help squeeze out fluids where it is no longer needed. Sorry I don’t have anything to cite. edit: misspelled “birth”
  - pjc50 7y ago
    Not really - we've just settled into an equilibrium where our heads are as large as possible with an ""acceptable"" death rate of maternal and child death and injury from the process. (I'm reminded of one of the plot items in the Vorkosigan saga, the great feminist space opera series, which has decantable artificial wombs - the ultimate labour-saving invention.)
Waterluvian 7y ago
So nobody told me about this but when my first was born his head was a cone. Like it was really really squished and tall. I was positive he was severely deformed and with all the courage I could muster, calmly asked, "first time dad question. What can you tell me about the shape of his head?" The nurse chuckled and assured me it was normal and would get round in hours. Tl;Dr: yes they can get very squished.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

rolleiflex 7y ago

One of the evolutionary theses about why our brains are at the size they are, and no larger / smaller is that we’ve hit the hard limit on what can exit a female body without killing either the parent or the baby. This paper adds a lot of credence to that theory.

user982 7y ago
Absent selective pressure for wider-hipped women.
- mundu_wa_hinya 7y ago
  This might explain why we see a significant number of birth deformation disabilities in East Africa. Recent migrations (past 0.5k-3k years) might have an impact. For example, it is thought that some parts of East Africa were originally occupied by a pygmy population. They inter married with the migrating Bantu (typically 1.5-1.7m) who also inter married with the Nilotes (Very tall. Masai, Samburu, Luo...). So you now have a descendant population with large variances in height, waist size and so on.
burfog 7y ago
Size incompatibility is thought to have killed neanderthal women who paired up with non-neanderthal men.
sokoloff 7y ago
Sounds plausible. I have an extended family member who was born after a multi-day labor [in the 40s] where the doctor asked of the father “do you want the baby or your wife to go home, because they’re not both going to make it”. He picked his wife; his wife picked the baby; both went home, but my aunt had life-long deficits from the multi-day traumatic labor and a forceps extraction.
- miemo 7y ago
  thank god they picked both
7y ago

pimlottc 7y ago

Hats off to the women who agreed to give birth inside a MRI for this study. Wow!