Spines Of Boys And Girls Differ At Birth

Wednesday, July 29, 2015 - 08:30 in Health & Medicine

Looking at measurements of the vertebrae - the series of small bones that make up the spinal column - in newborn children, investigators at Children's Hospital Los Angeles found that differences between the sexes are present at birth. Results of the study, now online in advance of publication in the August issue of the Journal of Pediatrics, suggest that this difference is evolutionary, allowing the female spine to adapt to the fetal load during pregnancy. Using magnetic resonance imagining (MRI), the researchers found that vertebral cross-sectional dimensions, a key structural determinant of the vertebra's strength, were 10.6 percent smaller on average in newborn females than in males. read more

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