Anterior Fontanel Size Among Term Newborns: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Background: Anterior fontanel is an integral element of an infant craniofacial system. There exist inconclusive findings on the size of anterior fontanel in newborns. Therefore, this systematic review and meta-analysis aimed to determine the pooled mean size of anterior fontanel among term newborns and to identify the pooled mean difference of anterior fontanel size between males and females. Methods: PubMed, Google Scholar, Science Direct, JBI Library, Embase, and Cochrane Library databases were systematically searched. Results: In this meta-analysis, 8,661newborns were involved in twenty-six studies. Among studies, 13 conducted in Asia, 7 in Africa, 5 in America, and 1 in Europe. The pooled mean size of anterior fontanel was 2.58 cm (95 % CI: 2.31, 2.85 cm). Conclusions: The pooled estimate of this review does provide the mean value of the anterior fontanel size in the newborns. There was a statistically significant mean fontanel size difference between male and female newborns. Therefore, male newborns had a significantly larger mean size than female newborns.