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Never Shake a
Baby-What Parents and Caregivers Need to Know is an 18 minute VHS video
produced by the Kiwanis Club of Ottawa, Canada Priority One committee
in 1998. It helps parents and those to whom parents entrust their
child's care cope effectively with the stress of a child's crying.
The videos are increasing public awareness throughout North America.
Forceful shaking
can permanently disable or kill a child. The injury associated
with baby shaking - Shaken Baby Syndrome - is a preventable tragedy.
Sadly, some parents and caregivers react to their frustrations
with a baby's crying by shaking the object of their frustration
- baby. This need not happen.
Injuries:
SBS is serious neurological injury-damage to a child's brain
- which is usually accompanied by bleeding behind the eyes and
sometimes by other injuries. The damage to the brain is the result
of a child's head being whip lashed back and forth by a violent
shaking, and sometimes by the head also being forcefully struck
against something. Because a baby's head is large and heavy relative
to its body, and its neck still weak, whip lashing creates powerful
forces ins. the head. Violent shaking squashes the brain against
the skull causing bleeding from torn blood vessels, damage of
tissues, and life-threatening swelling of the brain.
Consequences:
The degree of injury to the brain depends primarily on the forcefulness
of the shaking and the child's size. If the initial injuries
to the brain are severe, the child will very quickly develop
alarming symptoms such as seizure, stopping breathing and losing
consciousness. Even with prompt medical care, about one in five
victims will die. Most who survive sever brain injury will have
permanent disabilities such as paralysis, blindness, profound
developmental delay and seizures. Some will live in a vegetative
state. If the initial injuries to the brain are less severe,
children are still likely to have permanent consequences such
as movement and coordination problems, intellectual impairment,
learning problems and seizures. Experience to date suggests that
all children who survive a severe shaking injury to their brain
will require special care for their lifetime. Even those less
severely injured will need special services as they grow into
adulthood. |
