My daughter is 15 months and she just had her well baby check up, it was with a different doctor due to the fact my usual doc was out of town. The doc said that her weight is in the 57th percential and her length is in the 60th percential, but her head at 17 in is only in the 3 percential. She told me we were just going to keep an eye on it, but the nurse told me her head has grown every time she's been there, should I be worried? She's developing very well and is very smart, she walks/runs and talks and says some full sentences like "oh I got it" when reaching for something.
Edit- I talked to my aunt and she said that their (my dads) side of the family has always had small heads. My dads' head is smaller than my moms, and I have a heck of a time with hats, they never fit right or look good XD.
I have two daughters. One has a small head and one has large head. Both are at the opposite extremes. Both are intelligent.
Don't worry about it. My son has a small head too and no problems. When I told the doctor that my whole family as small heads, he said then it's no problem. My mother-in-law said that a lot of geniuses have small heads with the exception of Einstein. (She's a doctor in China.) She knew someone in her hospital that was a extremely intelligent and had a very small head. She said the size of the head doesn't matter, it's the density of the brain that matters. My son was officially classified as gifted at the end of 5th grade. Now I have this 13 year old, high school freshman. You mentioned about your daughter speaking full sentences....Capitolize on her intelligence. Encourage her to talk more and start teaching her how to draw shapes. You will be surprised what she can do. My son could verbally spell his name at that age. He knew the letters, so he took the liberty to memorize his name off the label of his cubby in daycare.
It sounds to me like there is no reason to worry, as long as she is progressing at a steady pace.
I think head size is only concerning if it's two deviations below the curve. So, when doc said " keep an eye on it", meant making sure her percentage didn't fall off the chart. Worst case, even if it does fall below, the fact that she is doing everything she should developmentally ( & sounds like more), I wouldn't worry about it.
I found an article some time ago when I had my son. The article indicated that if the measurements are on the same growth curve, and not decreasing, then there should be nothing to worry. It could just be a case of small stature, especially if mom or dad happen to have smaller heads. It did state though that decrease or failure to increase at the same pace could mean lack of brain growth. I would ask the doc when you see them next time.
My daughter had a small head from birth. Her head hadn't grown in the first few days of life and the NICU dr told me "small head, small brain, retarded." I probably could have strangled him at that point. The very next day he said that she had grown a tiny bit. She was on a special high cal formula to promote growth (she was 4 wks early), and she grew steadily. Today, at 3, her head is still on the smaller side (of average 3 y/o's), but she is completely fine.
Funny thing is her dad has a large head (so much so that his side of the family has trouble with hats!) and I don't exactly have a small head either.
At your next visit ask about her growth in that area.
Oh and no joke about his side of the family, his sister even shops at bigheadcaps.com. Swear!
=)
I have only a sec, but had to respond. I had same situation (about 10%) and went to neurosurgeon. We got scare too bc docs at first apt made measurement mistake we found out)...but her head was/is small. Docs tell us that as long as it grows and shes develpoing normally, no need to worry, some people just have small heads :) my daughter is 98% ht and 70 wt..! Odd, but its ok. Best of luck!
When my daughter was a baby she also was in the single digits for head size. I panicked. But the doctor said she was fine because it still fell in the range. It just meant that if there were 100 babies in the room, 97 would have larger heads. Her height was always in the 90s and weight was probably 60ish. I can tell you she is totally normal and still has a smallish head. It is only really noticeable when she tries to buy a hat. She's almost 16 but has to get hats from the kid's dept.!
All of these percentile measurements are just standards, and I'm sure they're useful, but they don't mean *in themselves* that something is wrong. If your child is developing the way she should, probably the only lasting effect is that she'll have a small hat size.
On the other hand, I inherited an extra-large head size from my dad's side of my family (and can't find hats that fit at all, doggone it!), and many of my children and grandchildren have inherited it, too. My grandchildren's doctors all said, "Wow!" at first, but when they realized it was an inherited thing they didn't worry. I keep saying there are extra brains in those heads, but for some reason nobody believes it.
