Shaken Baby Syndrome

What is shaken baby syndrome and how to avoid it?

MD and Professor of Pediatrics, Tamiko Jordan, discusses the severity of Shaken Baby Syndrome, which is the result of a violent shaking injury. This can cause horrible brain damage to your baby and result in the tearing of blood vessels and tissue, or more severe symptoms like coma or death. One out of every five babies with Shaken Baby Syndrome will die after the first few days of injury. It’s important for parents to be counseled and learn how shaking a baby is never a valid option to stop the baby from crying.

Transcript:

- Shaken Baby Syndrome is the result of a violent shaking injury. This is not bouncing the baby on your knee or tossing them into the air to play with them, or even falls from a short distance. It's the result of a violent shaking, usually babies grabbed by the trunk or the shoulders, and shaken back and forth very violently. Usually, a caregiver or a parent can do this out of frustration, because the baby is crying so hard, they can't think of any other way to make them stop crying. The terrible thing about ... Read more

Shaken Baby is that it can cause horrible brain damage. It usually results in tearing of blood vessels, of the brain tissue. Minor symptoms could be tremors, irritability, vomiting. Severe symptoms would be more like seizures, coma, and even death. One out of every five babies that suffer from Shaken Baby Syndrome will die within the first few days after the injury. The most terrible thing about Shaken Baby Syndrome is that it's totally preventable. Parents should be counseled, any caregiver should be counseled that shaking is never an option to make a baby calm down or stop crying. Doctors should talk to parents about postpartum depression, or trouble coping with the baby when they're crying, and ways they can deal with the baby, maybe take breaks, take a walk around the block, anything to clear their mind if they feel themselves getting angry and have any urge to shake the baby to make them stop crying.