How To Take Care Of A Newborn Baby– Well! You should be concerned about that. Now here we are to  help you to know about Shaken baby syndrome.

Shaken baby syndrome – is also known as abusive head trauma. It occurs when the baby is violently started, shaken severely and/or dropping/throwing the child. It includes inflicting of traumatic brain injury with shaken impact syndrome. It can happen to babies till the age of 5 years, wherein the bone & muscles in the neck part are found to be still brush stag.

What Is The Meaning Of Shaken Baby Syndrome?

Shaken baby syndrome is actually a severe brain injury that happens when a baby is shaken forcefully and violently. It has other medical terms such as abusive head trauma, whiplash shaken syndrome and shaken impact syndrome. When a baby is shaken as little for even 5 seconds as a child abuse, it will lead to severe brain damage.

Baby’s brain is very soft and neck muscles are very soft and tender. Even the blood vessels are very delicate. The shake causes the baby’s brain damage by the harsh hit which triggers the brain inside the skull. Then it leads to bleeding and brain swelling finally. Another set of injuries may happen, which are of broken bones along with severe damage to baby’s spine, neck and the eyes even. Most of this impact happen to the baby of 6 to 8 weeks old, most commonly to the children of age 2 and can affect children up to an age of 5.

One must be very careful while playing with the baby, wherein joyful interactions with the little one say for bouncing him/her on your lap or flinging the baby up in the air. And also, must not show angry emotions at the baby in which if you shake the little one out of anger or frustration, your baby had to meet life-threatening conditions.

Symptoms Of Shaken Baby Syndrome

Appending below are the checklist of symptoms, if your baby:

  1. Feels difficulty in staying awake
  2. Has tremors all over the body
  3. Troubled while breathing
  4. Inadequate intake of food
  5. Pukes and vomits often
  6. Has skin discoloration
  7. Has paralytic attacks
  8. Shows sign on coma
  9. Shows sign of seizures

If it so, take your baby immediately to nearby casualty to admit the baby for first aid.

How to diagnose Shaken Baby Syndrome?

The doctor will prescribe a list of tests and checks up to diagnose the syndrome, its severity and for the possibilities to save the baby. Initially, the doctors will look on below appending three conditions as to diagnose the shaken baby syndrome:

  1. Brain swelling or encephalopathy
  2. Bleeding in the brain part or subdural haemorrhage
  3. Bleeding in the eye area – the retina or retinal haemorrhage

The tests that include but not just limited to are off:

  1. MRI scan – using radio waves and magnetic waves to study the detailed areas of the brain
  2. CT scan – to read about the clear and cross-sectional images of the brain
  3. Skeletal X-ray – to read the full details of the spine, ribs and skull to see if any fractures there
  4. Ophthalmic examination – which is to see for any eye injuries if any and if any bleeding cause in the eyes

In addition, a blood test is required to check out for any other potential causes if any. Very few symptoms of shaken baby syndrome are that include bleeding disorders and genetic disorders – that is osteogenesis imperfecta. Thus, the blood test is required to see whether or not any other conditions cause such symptom for your baby.

How is Shaken Baby Syndrome Treated?

You must call for emergency medical care in case of such syndrome. Some babies will keep on crying, with bleeding in the nose and some babies will stop breathing after they are shaken. In this case, CPR will help you handy to keep the baby breathing till you wait for or reach for medical personnel. Below appending guide is the steps to be followed to perform CPR:

  1. Put the baby on the back: Chances are there for spinal injury, hence make the baby lie in the flat position on the back. Two people must help for this, wherein baby’s neck and the head should not get dispositioned.
  2. Set the right position: If the baby is under the age of 1 year, put two of your fingers on the center of his/her breastbone to set the baby in right position. For babies above 1 year, place one hand on the center of the breastbone. Then place the other hand on baby’s forehead to position the head to be tilted back. And if you are sure that if there is any spinal injury, now pull the jaw forward, don’t tilt the head and mouth must not get closed.
  3. Chest compressions: Just give slight pressure on the breastbone and push about halfway on the chest, give some 25 to 30 compression’s with no pause. And be sure that all the compression must be very firm and fast.
  4. Rescue breaths: Immediately check for breathing once after given strong and fast chest compressions. Still you don’t find any breathing symptom once even after chest compressions, and then tightly cover the baby’s nose and the mouth with your mouth. Make sure the air passage is open and gives breaths for two or three times. And be sure that each breath must last for at least one second to leave the chest to get a rise.
  5. Repeated CPR: Try repeating the CPR process and the compression cycle of about 30 numbers with two rescue breaths. And every now and then, keep checking for breathing.

Side Effects

Irreparable and severe brain damage may happen as the effect of such syndrome. And most of the babies experience bad complications, which include but are not just limited to:

  1. Partially or complete loss of vision
  2. Loss of hearing sense
  3. Seizure disorders
  4. Delay in developmental growth
  5. Intellectual disabilities
  6. Disorders of muscle coordination and speech – cerebral palsy

Do play with your babies a lot and be sure you are handle them with a very soft hand.