What is shaken baby syndrome?
Shaken baby syndrome (SBS) is a serious brain injury that happens when an adult violently shakes a baby or young child. Typically this type of child abuse happens when the adult is angry and is trying to get a baby to stop crying. It can also happen when the adult is frustrated with a toddler or preschooler over something like toilet training or a tantrum.
When the child's head is shaken back and forth, his brain hits against the skull, causing bruising, swelling, pressure, and bleeding in and around the brain. The impact often causes bleeding in the retina — the light-sensitive portion of the eye that transmits images to the brain.
A child with SBS may also have a damaged spinal cord or neck, as well as bone fractures. The amount of damage depends on how long and hard the child is shaken, but in just five to ten seconds a child can suffer permanent, severe damage or even death.
Could SBS could happen accidentally while you're playing with your baby? Fortunately not. The normal ways that most parents interact with their infants don't cause SBS: Bouncing your baby on your leg, swinging him in his baby swing, jiggling your baby in your arms, or tossing him gently in the air are not going to cause shaken baby syndrome. SBS is also extremely unlikely to happen because of an accidental fall.
It takes deliberate, violent back-and-forth motion to produce SBS. Unfortunately, an angry adult can quickly unleash that degree of violence on a baby or a small child.
Does SBS only happen to babies?
Most shaken baby injuries happen to children under 2 years old. The average age is between 6 and 9 months. Sometimes SBS shows up in kids as old as 5.
Babies and young children are especially vulnerable to this kind of injury because their head is proportionally larger than the rest of their body and their neck muscles are relatively weak, making it harder to support their large head. Also, a baby's immature skull is thinner and his blood vessels are more susceptible to tearing than those of older children and adults.
How common is SBS?
There are 1,200 to 1,400 cases of SBS in the United States every year. One out of four of these babies dies, and only about a third will survive without severe disabilities. Boys are shaken more often than girls, and almost 80 percent of adults doing the shaking are male.
A study presented in May 2010 at the annual meeting of the Pediatric Academic Societies looked at data from children's hospitals in three states and found a worrisome increase in the number of SBS brain injuries since the beginning of the economic recession in December 2007. Poverty and stress are risk factors for child abuse, which may may explain the rise in SBS during hard economic times.
What can happen to a baby who is shaken?
It depends on how long and hard the baby has been shaken. Some of the most common effects include:
- eye damage or blindness
- hearing impairment
- speech disabilities
- damage to the neck and spine
- learning disorders
- behavioral problems
- permanent vegetative state
- developmental problems or mental retardation
- seizures
- paralysis
- death
How would I know if someone shook my baby?
The symptoms depend on the extent of the damage. Less obvious symptoms include vomiting, lethargy, and irritability. A baby with SBS may have less of an appetite or difficulty feeding. He may appear rigid or glassy-eyed. He may be unable to lift his head or focus his eyes on an object.
As brain cells are destroyed and oxygen is depleted in the brain, neurological changes continue to occur. In severe cases, the baby may have difficulty breathing or suffer from seizures or heart failure. He may lose consciousness and become comatose.
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