Real fetal skull

These skulls are provided to us by retired doctors, medical researchers, dentists and former university physicians.

Babies' skull bones are soft and malleable. This is natural so that the head can fit through the relatively narrow birth canal during birth. But also because it grows extremely quickly in the first year of life. The skull bones are flexible and can move against each other thanks to cartilage joints (sutura). The base of the skull develops from cartilage tissue into the actual solid bone. This is a process that begins in early pregnancy and is not yet complete at the time of birth. There are still cartilage joints that keep the skull flexible. The large fontanelle in particular can still be felt for a long time. By the end of the first year of life, a so-called cranial suture (synostosis) has developed that connects the bones to one another.

Specifications:
With lower jaw
original images
skull length 11cm
skull width 7.9cm
skull height 8.8cm
The skull comes from a museum.