Pregnancy/Infancy

Mini-Paper #1 Pregnancy/Infancy Maltreatment is defined as being a deliberate, or avoidable, endangerment of a child, whether it is inflicted by parents or others (1). Sadly, many children today, including infants, unnecessarily become victims of many different types of maltreatment. One form of maltreatment stands out the most to me because it just goes to show how completely heartless so many people can be—shaken baby syndrome. In 2007, while studying social work, I was doing volunteer work at a Family Guidance and Outreach Center. At this center, we taught parenting classes twice a week, mainly for individuals that were court mandated to be in attendance. During April of that year, it was Child Abuse Prevention Awareness month, so naturally our classes being taught focused on abuse, or maltreatment. As many years as it has been, I so very clearly remember the night we did a class teaching about the shaken baby syndrome. It came as such a shock to me that so many parents attending that class seemed to be unaware of shaken baby syndrome and the gruesome outcomes of a baby that has been shaken. Shaken baby syndrome refers to a form of maltreatment in which shaking an infant or toddler can cause brain damage, paralysis, or death (1). If infants are lucky enough to survive this type of abuse, the lasting effects of the head and brain injuries can cause the child to never be able to function at a normal level (2). Unfortunately, the most heartbreaking fact of shaken baby syndrome is that it most typically occurs to children under the age of 2, but more so happens during early infancy. This syndrome can result in death because of the fragility of the baby’s neck and the bouncing back and forth of the brain inside of the skull, which leads to subdural hematomas, intraocular bleedings, and multiple traction changes in the long bones (3). According to our text, “head trauma is the leading cause of death in child abuse cases in the United

References: 1. Feldman, P., & Papalia, D. (2012). Experience Human Development. (12 ed., pp. 205-208). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill. 2. Cummings, S. (2007, April 22). Entertainment-filled rally a reminder that it shouldn 't hurt to be a child. Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, Retrieved from http://lubbockonline.com/stories/042207/ent_042207054.shtml 3. Caffey, J. (1974). The Whiplash Shaken Infant Syndrome: Manual Shaking by the Extremities With Whiplash-Induced Intracranial and Intraocular Bleedings, Linked with Residual Permanent Brain Damage and Mental Retardation. Pediatrics, 54(4), 396.