Shaken Baby Syndrome Research Paper

Never Shake A Baby
Shaken Baby Syndrome or abusive head trauma is a serious and potentially life threatening condition in children that results from being violently shaken. As identified in class, some symptoms of Shaken Baby Syndrome are seizures, decreased alertness, extreme irritability or change in behavior, loss of consciousness, loss of vision, poor feeding, vomiting or having trouble breathing. When diagnosing abusive head trauma, physicians specifically look for three symptoms in particular that have come to be known as ‘the triad.’ The triad includes unexplained bleeding in the brain, unexplained brain swelling, and unexplained bleeding behind the retina. The effects of SBS can be life long or even fatal.
However, even with all the
The triad cannot be tested directly, which has lead to misdiagnoses and false accusations because of the fact that the symptoms included in the triad could appear because of a completely different reason or condition. There is much evidence to support it, but the fact remains that one cannot one hundred percent confirm that a child has Shaken Baby Syndrome solely based on the triad.
In the article Doctors Devise A Better Way To Diagnose Shaken Baby Syndrome, Tara Haelle discusses the new process some doctors are using to try to diagnose Shaken Baby Syndrome more precisely. The new approach is simple; doctors recognize a certain list of symptoms that are related to abusive head trauma, and “the more of those a child
Woodward worked as an au pair to a baby boy named Michael, and when he suddenly stopped breathing one day she rushed him to the hospital. Later, when he died from what was diagnosed as Shaken Baby Syndrome, Woodward ended up being accused of violently shaking him and causing his injuries. This article focuses on the fact that there was so much emphasis placed on the Shaken Baby Syndrome triad of symptoms in this trial, and the overall divide in the medical world on the topic of abusive head trauma. Dr. Patrick Barnes, who testified in 1997, reveals that Woodward’s trial made him rethink what he knew about abusive head trauma. Dr. Barnes says that during the trial he “was adamant that it had to be child abuse, shaken baby syndrome (Haberman, The New York Times, September 13, 2015).” However, Barnes mentions that when the trial ended he began to rethink his stance, and that he, “is now convinced that the diagnosis has been invoked too readily in criminal cases and that other causes might explain any bleeding and brain swelling (Haberman, The New York Times, September 13, 2015).” It is clear that there could have been other causes for Michael’s injuries other than Shaken Baby Syndrome. The medical world seems to be divided in the way that some experts are convinced the triad of symptoms of Shaken Baby Syndrome can appear