Having a baby who cries and cries even though we do our best to try to calm him down is something that can be very desperate. Sometimes it is so much that there are parents who get to lose their temper, to the point of shaking or shaking the baby, at the risk that the baby suffers a more or less serious injury, in what is called the shaken baby syndrome or shaken baby syndrome.
This syndrome is the leading cause of death in cases of traumatic brain injury due to abuse, with 1,200 and 1,400 cases of children with injuries or death being calculated in the United States as a result of a more or less violent shock by their caregivers.
A recent study indicates that the number of men and women guilty of treating children in this way is equivalent, although men are more likely to be condemned for it.
The reason for this is that men, as a general rule, are stronger than women and tend to shake children with more violence. Children suffer, consequently, more serious injuries. In addition, men seem to be more likely to confess guilt.
In order to make the study, the data collected during 10 years on 34 cases of traumatic brain injury due to maltreatment in infants have been analyzed and it has been observed that the aggressors were both men and women, showing that when they were women, they were older than men .
Previous studies indicate that it is more men who shake or shake babies. However, Dr. Debra Esernio-Jenssen, lead author of the current study, comments that it is very likely that there are biases:
When a child comes to restless and irritable consultation and perhaps with vomiting, many pediatricians do not take into account that this child could be a victim of head injury due to abuse if the woman who accompanies him is a woman. I think society accepts that a man may not be a good caregiver, especially a young child.
Apparently, this feeling that men are not good caregivers and that women are (or should be) is one of the reasons why women are more likely to deny that they have come to mistreat their child.
The study data tell us that the average age of abused children was 9.4 months. He 94% of them suffered cerebral hemorrhages and 82% retinal hemorrhages. Two thirds of the children were boys (there are studies that show that fathers and mothers are less careful with male babies, because we unconsciously see them stronger) and six of the 34 children died. The six children who died were shaken by their parents (men).
Although this is a study with a small sample, it is significant to see that the majority of children who came to the emergency room suffered serious injuries (94% suffered cerebral hemorrhage). He shaken baby syndrome It is very serious and parents should know this data to try to avoid these types of injuries, which can be fatal.
