- The ARC - California Edition -

Shaken Baby Syndrome

Don’t, Don’t, Don’t ever shake or toss a baby. Shaking or tossing a baby or small child can cause serious harm to their brains, heads, and necks. This is the message highlighted this spring by a group of advocates desiring to increase the general public’s awareness about the magnitude and impact of the child abuse problem in the U.S.

Shaken Baby Syndrome is a fairly recent medical diagnosis, no more than 25 years old, but the harm resulting from parents and care takers physically shaking or striking their babies has been a hidden state-of-being for centuries.

In the literature concerning the 18th and 19th centuries, there were reports of widespread acceptance to the approach for "boxing a child’s ears" as part of the normal discipline used for "bad boys" and sometimes "bad girls". The prestigious Thomas A. Edison reportedly became deaf at a very young age after having his ears boxed.

A point to be made here is that parents during those periods may not have realized the impact on their child from this type of discipline procedure. In fact, the people that you would expect to long ago recognize the cause-and- effect impacts of shaking a baby - the medical community - did not report and document the Shaken Baby Syndrome in the medical literature until 1971. Before that time most physicians usually had no explanation for a fatally injured baby showing no outward signs of damage - just unexplained bleeding of the infant’s brain.

Since then, the medical community has received some new tools to aid in determining that Shaken Baby Syndrome has occurred. As a result of widespread use of computed tomographic scanning (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), as well as increased awareness and reporting of child abuse, SBS is now identified all too often.

Head trauma injury is a major cause of death for American children, particularly infants. On a national level, child abuse is the number one killer of children under the age of 4, with estimates of 2,000 to 5,000 deaths per year and more than 140,000 serious injuries. Head trauma, including suspected Shaken Baby Syndrome, is the leading cause.

In California during 1993, nearly 20% of children under the age of 4 who were hospitalized for violent injuries suffered intracranial damage such as bleeding, contusion or brain lesion without a skull fracture - injuries consistent with SBS. SBS is so deadly that 20% to 25% of the SBS victims die, and most survivors suffer brain damage resulting in lifelong cerebral palsy, visual defects, or cognitive impairment.

A typical scenario describes the Shaken Baby Syndrome as the shaking coming from frustration and rage on the part of an adult who is unable or unwilling to calm the baby’s prolonged crying. This angry adult shakes the infant until the crying stops. Often, when the crying ends, the baby is unconscious.

In this process, the shaking has rammed the baby’s brain against the inside of the skull, sending it ricocheting from side to side, shearing blood vessels and destroying tissue in the process. There is strong evidence that children with a variety of disabilities, including mental retardation, are even more likely to be physically abused than their non-disabled peers.

Researchers have reported that 25% to 50% of adults "do not know" that shaking a baby, even one time, can delay normal development, result in brain damage, spinal injury, mental retardation, or even death. In a February 1995 report, researchers presented evidence that males account for more than 60% of shaken baby abuse, while female "baby-sitters" accounted for another 17.3%.

These types of scientific reports can be verified by a review of almost daily newspaper reports concerning SBS. In moments of frustration, parents somehow forget how fragile their children are. Experts feel that people need to know that babies can cry and that babies can stress them. Parents and care takers must find other ways for coping with that stress. Doctors also need to become more aware of Shaken Baby Syndrome because many babies at risk have had prior injuries, such as unexplained bruising or subtle fractures.