by Carolyn Robertson posted in Pregnancy

Expectant mom Nikki was already nine centimeters dilated when she arrived at the hospital to deliver her second child earlier this year. Despite the fact that her labor was so far along, she still had plenty of work to do.
It turns out that her baby boy was positioned slightly sideways, which made the pushing part of childbirth even harder. In the end, Nikki pushed for a full hour before her son Graham finally made his way into the world, happy and healthy.
Of course, all that time spent pushing put pressure on the soft bones of the baby's head, and as a result, he arrived with a distinctly oblong, or cone-shaped, head -- often a trademark of a vaginal birth.
Florida-based photographer Kayla Reeder was on hand to capture the delivery, and says Nikki managed to deliver her new baby without medical intervention: "Her son's head was a little bit crooked in the birth canal but her body and the baby knew what to do." Kayla's stunning photos of the birth and baby Graham give a fascinating look at how the journey through the birth canal can actually mold a newborn's skull.

While it can look quite dramatic -- especially to a first-time mom and dad -- newborn head-molding is temporary and not a cause for concern.
According to BabyCenter expert Dr. David Geller, "The head gets this way because it must be compressed to fit through the narrow birth canal. This is possible because the immature skull bones have not yet grown ...