Reversing Shaken Baby Syndrome by Health Central

7 It provides firm evidence of shaking in the absence of a history of severe accidental head trauma. The loss of blood, typically 2–15 ml, into the subdural space is not of itself harmful. Movement of the brain within the subdural space causes stretching and tearing of the bridging veins, which extend from the cortex to the dural venous sinus. Rotational forces, which occur during shaking, cause the brain to turn on its central axis or at the attachment to the brainstem. Such forces occur during falls and at worst cause a skull fracture, but are usually relatively benign. Translational forces produce linear movement of the brain. The forces needed for a head injury are translational or rotational. 7 Such individuals are most frequently male, fathers, boyfriends, and babysitters. Some have admitted using shaking as a technique for stopping the child crying. The perpetrator is generally of limited patience and experience in handling a child. In a fit of rage the child may also be thrown down. 5, 6 Most children were aged less than 6 months.Ĭhildren are usually shaken in response to prolonged inconsolable crying. In two recent British surveys the annual incidence of inflicted subdural haemorrhage was 21.0 and 24.6 per 100 000 children under 1 year. The incidence of those that come to serious harm can, however, be identified. It is difficult to estimate how frequently infants in Britain are shaken. Guthkelch also noted that a “ good shaking” was felt by British parents to be socially more acceptable and less dangerous than a blow to the head or elsewhere. 4 He wrote that the “ relatively large head and puny neck muscles” render the infant particularly vulnerable to whiplash injury. 3 In 1971 Guthkelch, a neurosurgeon, reported subdural haematoma as a feature of the “ battered child syndrome” and postulated that the brain injury was caused by shaking. This changed after Kempe et al highlighted the plight of abused children in their landmark paper in 1962. Nowadays such a scenario would seem incredible, but the phenomenon of child abuse had received little recognition at that time.

2 A history of injury was lacking and the cause remained unexplained. 1 In 1946 John Caffey, a paediatric radiologist, reported long bone fractures in six infants with subdural haematomas. In 1860 Tardieu reported thickening of blood on the surface of the brain in Parisian children who were the victims of child abuse.

Reversing Shaken Baby Syndrome by Health Central