Brothers Born with Identical Craniofacial Condition Three Years Apart Thriving After Major Skull Surgeries at Seattle Children’s: ‘I Felt We Were in the Best Hands’
Each year, Seattle Children’s Craniofacial Center treats hundreds of children with craniosynostosis, a condition most families have never heard of, yet can affect approximately 1 in every 2,500 babies in the United States.
That was the case for Kali Dempsey’s family, of Camano Island, WA, in early 2017.
“We were sent to Seattle Children’s when my son Ronan was about a month old and they diagnosed him there,” explained Dempsey. “It was all brand new. You hear about all kinds of things, but I had never come across craniosynostosis before.”
At birth, the seams between the bone plates in a baby’s skull are not fused together, allowing a child’s head to move through the birth canal and permitting the skull to grow bigger over time. Craniosynostosis is when one or more of these seams closes too early.