Shaken baby syndrome: A biomechanics analysis of injury mechanisms

Shaken Baby Syndrome: An Odyssey

“…Bandak precisely addressed this question in a quantitative manner in 2005. 1) In focusing attention on the infant neck, and demonstrating thereby that any transmission of forces generated by shaking the infant torso must necessarily be transmitted through the underdeveloped infant neck to the disproportionately large head, Bandak showed clearly that cervical spinal cord or brainstem injury in the infant would occur at significantly lower levels of shaking accelerations than those purported in the shaken baby syndrome literature as a cause of subdural hematomas. It is now clear that if an infant is subjected to shaken baby syndrome accelerations one should expect to see injury in the infant neck before it is seen in the head.…”

The Shaken Baby Syndrome: An Odyssey -II Origins and Further Hypotheses-

“…1,9,25) It is now clear that if humans actually do manually shake infants, the forces required to produce acute subdural hematoma by this hypothetical mechanism cannot be generated without impact. In reviewing an extensive body of literature including published articles and clinical cases, it is noted that many of the infants supposedly shaken exhibit not acute, but chronic subdural hematomas, which themselves are known to expand and present by rebleeding without accompanying trauma.…”

Biomechanics and injury assessment of household falls in children : clinical, anthropomorphic surrogate, and computer simulation studies.

“…One study reported that in order to reach acceleration levels necessary to cause the severe head injuries described in shaken baby syndrome, the thresholds for neck injury would be exceeded. 25 This publication was criticized however, and it was determined after attempts to repeat the calculations, that neck forces were actually far below the threshold for injury. Although studies have varying results as to which long bone is most commonly fractured, most report no significant differences between children with inflicted and non-inflicted injuries regarding which bones are fractured.…”