Repeated and missed signs of child abuse|New study highlights that confessed perpetrators of AHT/SBS often repetitively injure or shake a child|Shaken baby syndrome lawsuit|Child Abusive Head Injury Lawsuit

In the September 2010 issue of Pediatrics, Catherine Adamsbaum,M.D., Sophie Grabar, M.D., Ph.D., Nathalie Mejean, M.D. and Caroline Rey-Salmon, M.D. published a retrospective observational study entitled "Violent and Repetitive Shaking is Common in AHT", Pediatrics, Vo. 126, No. 3. The interesting study examined 112 cases. 29 included confessions by the perpetrator, and 83 did not. In the confessed cases, previous signs of child abuse were found in the medical records of 27% of the children - 93% of whom were under one year of age. The most common sign of abuse was bruising in non-ambulatory infants - found in the records between 1 week to 2 months before infliction of the acute catastrophic abusive head trauma. The authors reported that in none of these cases did the presence of the bruising lead to suspicion of the diagnosis of child abuse. Also, with respect to the act of shaking the infant (as opposed to inflicting previous abuse such as tissue damage which resulted in bruising, etc.), 55% of the confessed perpetrators described repeated episodes of violent shaking. The mean number of shaking episodes for the repeat shakers was 10. 62% of those repeat shakers described immediate periods of exhaustion in which the child would go to sleep after they shook the infant. All of the repeat shakers reported that they shook the babies to stop them from crying.

If you know a child who was shaken, and you want to see whether they had previous signs of abuse like the 27% identified in the Adamsbaum study, contact the Keane Law Firm for free at 888-592-KIDS (5437), or on the web. We will examine your child's case for free with world-renowned child abuse experts to determine whether or not prior signs of abuse were present and should have been detected, and reported to child protective services. If we find that prior signs of abuse existed, should have been detected and should have been reported to child protective services, we will then represent your baby on a tongenc basis - meaning there will be no fee paid unless we win, and then it will be paid out of any settlement or verdict or judgment. You and your child will not have to pay money out of your pocket to have us perform this service.