<p>I haven’t seen a thread about this yet, and I just wanted to share it with all of you. Please, parents, make sure your kids know this: don’t EVER, no matter what, shake a baby. I have a new 2-month-old nephew and I can’t believe someone would do this to an innocent baby.</p>
<p>The original story, from the mother of the shaken baby:
Hello everyone…</p>
<p>I write you this message in grief in faith.</p>
<p>My son Kaleb was rushed by ambulance to the emergency room on Wed. after we picked him up from the babysitters house. At UCH they determined that Kaleb had a SubDural Hematoma (His brain is bleeding). He then was Bayflighted (helicopter) to Tampa General Hospitals Pediatric Intensive Care Unit on a Trauma Alert.</p>
<p>Doctors determined that Kaleb was shaken while at the homecare he goes to. He is suffering from Shaking Baby Syndrome.</p>
<p>When we first arrived at the hospital they put a pressure gage into his head to moniter the Intercranial Pressure (The pressure that the brain is under due to swelling and Bleeding). He wasn’t doing too well all day yesterday, his pressure in his head was ranging between 29-40 and the normal pressure is between 5-20. So doctors decided that the best thing to do was to put a tube into his brain to drain spinal fluid from his ventricle. This procedure was a sucess and brought the pressure down.</p>
<p>Today however, they did a Cat Scan and saw that Kaleb is now suffering from a stroke and has formed a new bleed in the brain.</p>
<p>I beleive in Miralcles! I believe that prayer works. I am asking you, all of my friends, whether you know me well or not to PLEASE pray for my little boy Kaleb. He needs a miracle and we need your help!</p>
<p>I know some of you may not believe in God… But he exists! And he’s already performed one miracle. Please I ask you, I beg you, to Pray for my little boy and my family. He is my everything.</p>
<p>When I read a story like this, I always wonder if it is true. To check, I like to go to <a href=“http://www.snopes.com%5B/url%5D”>www.snopes.com</a>. This particular story appears to be true:</p>
<p>This is absolutely a tragic story, and I pray that the little boy recovers. </p>
<p>However, the idea that “shaking” a baby can cause a subdural hematoma is myth. Unfortunately, this myth is repeated at many emergency rooms around the country. Physicians and nurses have no substantial training in quantifying the relationships between applied forces and motions and resulting damage to structures. If they did, they would realize that the “weakest link in the chain” for a two-month-old child is obviously the neck. In other words, if one were grab a two-month-old child and violently shake him, his neck would yield before the forces were any near large enough to create a subdural hematoma, UNLESS THE HEAD IMPACTED SOMETHING. That is why some physicians have changed their description of “shaken baby syndrome” to “shaken impact syndrome” (which is sort of like calling a car accident “driving impact syndrome”). Obviously, by throwing a baby against the wall or floor, you can cause major head injuries. By bouncing a baby on your knee or throwing him up in the air and catching him, ZERO injury will result. It is possible that the child fell off a changing table and hit his head on the floor or that he fell down some stairs to receive such an injury, but “shaking” is NOT a possible explanation for his brain injuries. A subdural hematoma requires a dramatically larger head acceleration than what can be caused by shaking a baby with a weak neck.</p>
<p>He is improving VERY slowly. They doubt that he can see and hear very little, if at all. They fear that he may be mentally ■■■■■■■■ for the rest of his life.</p>
<p>pafather, I almost feel as if you’re minimizing what this baby went through. No matter what happened, he didn’t get this badly injured by himself. I’ve known babies that have fallen off of things…I in fact was dropped on my head as an infant…and none of them were that badly injured. That e-mail/bulletin does not even list the full amount of injuries. He was so severely shaken that he had spinal fluid in his brain. He still has seizures, and every movement/noise he makes is a miracle. Again, I seriously doubt that he got that way by sheer happenstance.</p>
<p>I am not minimizing the injuries in any way. A subdural hematoma is a very serious head injury. I was only clearing up that a two-month-old child sustaining such an injury from shaking, and without any head impact is PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE.</p>