All issues > Volume 19(12); 1976

Original Article

J Korean Pediatr Soc. 1976;19(12):930-934. Published online December 31, 1976.

Anterior Fontanel Sizes in the Neonate

Hak Hae Kim¹

¹Department of Pediatrics, College of Medicine, Ewha Woman s University, Seoul. Korea

Abstract

The sizes of anterior fontanel was measured in 299 healthy newborn infants who were seen in the newborn nursery of Ewha Woman’s University Hospital in 1975. Measurement was made on the third day of life using Davies’ method. The group of newborn infants was divided into 3 groups including 234 healthy full term, 22 healthy half-breed fullterm and 43healthy low-birth weight infant. Low-birth weight infant was subdivided into 30 healthy preterm and 8 healthy “small-for-date” infants. The following findings were noted. 1)The mean value of anterior fontanel for 234 full term infants was 2. 5cm2土 1.48. The mean value of anterior fontanel for 22 healthy halfbreed fullterm infants was 2.76cm2±l. 74 2)The value of anterior fontanel for low-birth weight infants was 1.73cm2 in average. For the 30 preterm infants the mean size of anterior fontanel were 1.68cm2士 1.08 for the 14 preterm (29~35 weeks) infants and 1.78cm2±l. 08 for the 16 preterm (35~36 weeks) infants, respectively. For the 13 healthy “small-for-date* infants, the mean value of anterior fontanel was 3.22cm2土3.60. 3) In general, the normal values in preterm and term infants suggested enlargement of the fontanel with gestational age and birth weight. Small-for-date infants have significantly larger anterior fontanels than either preterm or term infants (p<0.05) and show a very wide scatter of individual values.

Keywords :