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I'm sorry for the mothers. Not only is the cost of having a child simply exorbitant, but the human pelvis is not particularly well suited to the actual process of delivery of a newborn to big head.
One of the ways humans have evolved to get around this big-bodied and narrow-ponded dilemma is a soft, mouldable skull that fuses and hardens between 7 and 18 months of age. This viscous skull can change shape under pressure, allowing it to sneak into the birth canal.
Now scientists have used 3D scanning to demonstrate How the fetal brain changes shape during the delivery process. The results were published in the journal PLOS ONE.
Twenty-seven pregnant women were scanned with an MRI machine between 36 and 39 weeks of gestation. Seven of these women were then scanned again, no more than 10 minutes before delivery.
The resulting images show varying degrees of what they call "molding the fetal head", thus revealing clear differences between the first and second sets of images. None of the 27 images in the first series showed overlapping fetal structures, but the seven in the second set did so, demonstrating how the brain modifies itself during labor to adapt to the genital canal.
Immediately after birth, this "cranial malformation" was no longer visible in five of the seven babies. The parameters of their skulls were "identical" to what they had been in the womb.
With respect to the three newborns with the most notable skull molding (and the most severe brain shape deformities), two were born by caesarean section and one was born by natural birth.
In 2017, photographer Kayla Reeder captured incredible images of a Graham baby, whose lateral positioning resulted in an extreme cast of the skull. But do not worry, in this case, the baby's head has returned to its normal shape, emphasizing how complex (and flexible) the human body is.
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