Judging from the occasional trial report in newspapers shaking babies is very dangerous as it often leads to death or lasting brain damage, and it occurs fairly frequently. This Wikipedia article supports this.
Now if I did not read newspapers I (a nonparent) would not be aware of this; absent this information I’d consider shaking a baby in trying to stop it crying a disgusting type of violence towards the helpless, but not likely to cause death or disability.
So I wonder: Do new parents get told about this as a matter of course by hospitals and/or midwives?
YES. There is a great deal of information about SBS and its consequences given to parents. In fact, I saw a closed-circuit TV station aimed at new mothers that had public service announcements in which actors playing parents told anecdotes of shaking their children. (In one, the child was killed, in the other, the child was left blind.)
The campaign is called “Never Never Shake a Baby”.
I’ve seen the Never Never Shake a Baby campaign posters.
Shaking is one of those things that doesn’t ‘seem’ as bad as it is, if you don’t know the kind of damage it can cause. Especially if you see a kid fall from what seems like a great height, bang their head, cry a little and be fine in five minutes. That can seem so much more violent than shaking.
When the screeching hellspawn was brought forth to wreak havoc upon the world, the nurse mentioned that we’d have to watch a video about “Shaken Baby Syndrome” before they’d discharge us. Never did actually see the video, but I’m sure there’s a box somewhere on the D/C form about us having watched it.
Yep. In prenatal counseling sessions, a fair amount of time is devoted to educating parents-to-be on the dangers.
I don’t recall getting the same information in our adoption process, although since the two happened fairly close together and some years ago, I am not sure.
Oh yes. In fact it’s so pervasively present on the OB unit that when I had my last kid, his big brother who went with us to the hospital got an overload of it, so much so that when my best friend came over to see the baby and was holding him while kind of jiggling her leg (she’s a nervous sort), big brother took his baby brother back and gave her a lecture.
She thought it was cute.
This was some years ago. Baby is now 11. So this campaign has been in place awhile.
“Coup Contra Coup”: this is where the baby is being violently shaken, and the brain is violently banged around inside the skull, which traumatises the brain itself, damages CNS connective tissue and causes bleeding, as the CNS vascular system is doinked around with the brain;
Spinal Cord Injury: this can be induced when the baby’s head isn’t properly supported by the abusing parent or guardian. The head is rather heavy at that stage of development, and the sheer weight of the head boucing about can injure the spinal cord or tissue.
The potential logical issue with primary prevention for SBS is that it is least likely to be effective in those most likely to perpetrate it.
I was told as an older brother, uncle, cousin, and father.
My ex-girlfriend’s daughter’s boyfriend who very nearly killed my ex-GF’s granddaughter by, among other things, shaking her silly when she was 2 months old (along with pouring boiling water on her) was told. Of course he was a miserable bastard who needed to be shot, and his claims about not knowing were made less credible by the fact that he also poured boiling water on a baby to “make her stop crying.”
Nope, we took three different classes, though only one on baby care, and not once were we told of SBS. Though I’d read about it before. Then again we had one of the worst stays at the hospital I can ever imagine.
You forgot the last line of the label. It reads, “Do not remove under penalty of law.”
We saw a video in childbirth education class about it when our son was born in '96.
When my daughter was born (1988) I didn’t learn about it in any childbirth classes, but I knew (duh) that shaking a baby was wrong.
There’s a special Baby Channel on the TVs in the hospital rooms around here devoted to 101 Ways Your Baby Will Die Because You’re a Clueless Nimrod, Plus, How to Give Baby a Bath! - SBS is indeed included. (When a friend was in labor, the nurse turned it on, and friend finally asked me to turn it off, because it was freaking her out.)
The scary thing about SBS is how easily it happens. Babies LOVE being jiggled and rocked and tickled, and the movement from a particularly vigorous tickle-jiggle-giggle is enough to cause SBS, or so I’m told. It’s not always because you’re an asshole who shook the baby because it was crying, and it’s not always obvious right away what happened - the baby can seem just fine, go down for a nap afterwards and not wake up.
I knew about it in 1993, when WhyKid was born, but I think it came from a mothering magazine (“101 Ways Your Baby Will Die Because You’re a Clueless Nimrod, Plus, Fun School Lunches!”), and from a nurse who came to visit the home after the (hospital) birth.
The in-room TVs show about three local channels and a hundred piped-in channels. All thoses piped-in channels show a continuous loop video in a hundred languages specifically addressing this issue.
My daughter is 4 weeks old today. At no point were myself or my wife told that our new baby shouldn’t be shaken. That doesn’t bother me though, because we also weren’t told that we shouldn’t feed her rat poison. About the same level of obviousness to me.
:eek:
You’re freaking me out now. I guess I should stop using the little one as a football huh? And I guess teaching her to head bang to metal is out too?
Actually now I am worried a bit, it’s easy to screw up? I think they might have said something about not shaking the baby like a rattle, but I kind of figured that. But a vigorous tickle-jiggle-giggle? She LOVES that.
Was told this just last week at our prenatal class.
Along with a demonstration (using the weird plastic baby, of course) of the various different things that could be considered “shaking”.
I would have hoped that no one in the class needed to be told, but one lady (after the instructor mentioned a couple of theories around SIDS) asked if a baby would suffocate if sleeping in a room with two adults, because the adults would use up all the oxygen; so it’s surely for the best they mentioned it.
