NCJ Number
204454
Journal
Child Abuse Review Volume: 12 Issue: 6 Dated: November-December 2003 Pages: 401-415
Date Published
November 2003
Length
15 pages
Annotation
This article updates the literature review (Wheeler, 2001) that was the basis for the British Home Office Police Research Award Report on shaken baby syndrome (SBS); it places SBS in historical perspective and argues that the basis of prevention, investigation, and medical knowledge of SBS cases is multidisciplinary cooperation.
Abstract
Public awareness of SBS can be traced to the major media coverage in America in the 1950's, when a nurse who cared for infants killed 3 children in her care and injured 12 others by shaking them. By the 1990's a new generation of American doctors was involved in SBS research, and their published findings have increased the medical community's and the public's awareness of the prevalence and danger of SBS. A similar evolution in SBS research and awareness has occurred in other countries, notably in Germany, Japan, Sweden, France, and Belgium. The SBS-oriented publications of the 1990's emphasized the multidisciplinary aspects of SBS. Regarding the detection of SBS, research in ophthalmology has made an important contribution. Researchers have concluded that although retinal hemorrhages in newborns is not uncommon, in 86 percent of such cases the birth-related retinal hemorrhages disappear 2 weeks after birth. Researchers have concluded that intraretinal hemorrhaging in an infant over 4-weeks old is unlikely to be related to birth trauma. This knowledge is important in investigating suspicious retinal bleeding in children. Other disciplines that are important in the diagnosis and investigation of SBS are radiology (detecting rib fractures), criminal justice (how to charge in SBS injuries and deaths), epidemiology (demographic data on SBS cases), and social work and policing (prevention and investigations). The literature also features numerous debates and controversies associated with SBS. The key debates discussed in this article are the interval of lucidity between the initial shaking and a victim's death, the degree of trauma, the mechanism of injury, and differential diagnosis. 90 references