Things that go bump in the day or night

Abstract

The aim of this study was to describe the aetiology and severity of head injury in an infant (age<1 year) population presenting to a Scottish Paediatric Emergency Department (PED) and to discern preventable risk factors. The records of infants who presented to the PED of the Royal Aberdeen Children's Hospital between September 2010 and December 2011 with isolated head trauma were reviewed, patient demographics were extracted and information on aetiology, including nonaccidental injury (NAI), was recorded. Of 1574 attendances, 233 suffered isolated head injury. The majority (97%) were minor; six patients suffered skull fractures, three had traumatic intracranial haemorrhage and only three were considered to have sustained an NAI. The most common mode of injury was fall from a height (37%). Infants commonly present to the PED with head injury, many of which should be easily preventable. The number of cases because of NAI in our population is smaller than previously published figures.

Epidemiological and clinical characteristics of hospitalized unintentional injuries among children in central China from 2017–2023

“…Falls were the third leading external cause of unintentional injury in Central China. Falls could result in head and facial injuries, traumatic spinal cord injuries and cervical spine injuries in infants and young children ( 38 , 39 ), and falls were also one of the main causes of death among children. The incidence of falls among children was affected by various factors, such as age, gender, health status, environmental conditions, behavioral habits ( 39 ).…”

Head Trauma in Infants: Experience of a High Flow Tertiary Hospital in a Developing Country

“…Another important cause of head injury in infants is nonaccidental head trauma due to child abuse which is known as "shaken baby syndrome". Many articles addressed nonaccidental head trauma reporting its incidence to range between 1.3% and 25% of all cases of infantile head trauma admitted to the hospital [8] [14] [17]. This wide range may be explained by the frequent under-diagnosis of this mode of trauma which should be suspected when there are findings suggestive of traumatic brain injury with no history of trauma or inappropriate history to the degree of injury observed.…”

“…In their series including infants and toddlers below 3 years of age with accidental and non-accidental head trauma, Adamo et al reported that 86.5% of their patients with accidental head trauma had mild head injury, with 5.4% of their accidental patients with severe head injury [14]. In their series of 233 infants with isolated head trauma, Brown et al mentioned that 97% of these patients had minor head injury [8]. Vaghani et al had mild head injury in 62% of their patients, moderate injury in 14%, and severe injury in 24% [7].…”

“…Despite its importance, only few articles have addressed accidental head injury in infants as a separate entity. They found that most of these injuries were mild resulting from falls and carried a good prognosis in the majority of patients [7] [8]. The aim of this study was to describe the epidemiology, etiology, management and clinical outcome of head trauma in infants (<2 years) in a high flow tertiary hospital in Egypt.…”

Assessment System for Child Head Injury from Falls Based on Neural Network Learning

“…For toddlers three years and younger, falls pose the most significant risk to their lives, leading to injuries such as craniofacial fractures, concussions, and sprains of the cervical spine’s spinal cord and neck strains [ 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 ]. According to an Injury Review of Chinese Children and Adolescents [ 6 ], falls are the most common reason for accidental injury and death in China’s children aged 1 to 4 years old.…”