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Shaken Baby Syndrome (SBS) is a medical theory that explains a form of child abuse when an infant is shaken violently by their caretaker, creating a whip-lash motion that results in severe brain injury, lifelong disability or death. The concept of SBS was described in the early 1970's by a neurosurgeon, Dr. Guthkelch. His medical theory has sent dozens of women to jail and was used in the trial of the now infamous au pair, Louise Woodward. She was prosecuted and found guilty of manslaughter for shaking an infant in her care while she was an au pair for Cultural Care.
Breaking scientific research published in the Paediatric Development Pathology Journal (United Kingdom, 2009) sheds new light on SBS. Recent scientific findings may lend evidence to exonerate jailed "abusers" (who continue to protest their innocence) and could have a dramatic effect on future SBS and child abuse trials.
Two British pathologists have found that a combination of injuries used to diagnose SBS abuse, known as the "triad" (swelling, bleeding and oxygen deprivation to the brain), can happen naturally.
Dr Irene Scheimberg (London's Bart's Hospital) and Dr Marta Cohen (Sheffield Children's Hospital) found that bleeding, swelling and oxygen deprivation to the brain can occur without violent shaking. The study found that the symptoms of Shaken Baby Syndrome can happen in babies even before they are taken home from hospital.
Dr. Scheimberg warns that when there "is no evidence of physical abuse (apart from the triad of SBS sypmtoms) we may be sending to jail parents who lost their children through no fault of their own." The doctor went on to state, "As scientists it is our duty to be cautious when we see the triad and to take each case on its merits. We owe it to children and their families."
The doctors looked at 25 babies who had died shortly before delivery and 30 newborns who had brain hemorrhages and found similar damage to the brains of all the babies. The study concluded that the symptoms are common in infants and could be caused by a traumatic birth or other conditions.
There were two groups of children who presented with symptoms similar to SBS - one group had bleeding in the brain caused by normal vaginal delivery and went on to lead normal lives and the other group who also presented with sign of SBS at birth, but did not get well, and whose bleeding continued and actually got worse. Dr. Scheimberg said, "These are the children who the courts suspect have been harmed by their parents (or caregivers)."
The evidence of their study could now be used in a number of appeals in cases where caregivers or parents were prosecuted and jailed for killing infants by shaking them and could finally exonerate Louise Woodward, who many believe she did shake baby Matthew until his brain started to bleed.
The "triad" of symptoms known as Shaken Baby Syndrome was used by the prosecution in the 1998 U.S. trial of British au pair Louise Woodward, who was found guilty of the second-degree murder of eight-month-old Matthew Eappen in October 1997. She was sentenced to a minimum of 15 years to life in prison but the judge overruled that decision and reduced her conviction to involuntary manslaughter. Her sentence was then reduced to time served (279 days) and she was released as a free woman.
In 2007, Dr Patrick Barnes, the prosecution's star medical witness, reversed his medical opinion that convicted Woodward: he concluded that death (of Matthew Eappen) could have been caused by an old injury, as argued by the defense. In a scientific paper he states: "The science we have today could, in fact, have exonerated Louise. There is certainly, in retrospect, reasonable doubt."
There are about 200 cases of Shaken Baby Syndrome diagnosed in Britain every year and an estimated 1,200 to 1,400 cases diagnosed every year in the United States (data from the National Center on Shaken Baby Syndrome). Many of the childcare givers and mothers who are accused in these cases protest their innocence and deny they did anything harmful to the babies left in their care.
A U.S. physician, Harold E Buttram, notes that many cases of brain hemorrhages are dependent on the strength of the smallest blood vessels at birth, which can be affected by different conditions. He also warns, "Among the many adversities and difficulties facing the American family today, there is a relatively new and growing hazard in which a parent or caretaker may be falsely accused of murdering or injuring an infant by the shaken baby syndrome, when the true cause of death or injury arises from other sources. Very tragically, child abuse does occur and deserves appropriate punishment. However, it is equally tragic when a family, already grieving from the death of their infant, finds a father or mother unjustly accused, convicted, and imprisoned for murder of the infant, a murder of which he or she is innocent."
He explains, "In fact, an infant can die with extensive retinal hemorrhages, a blood clot under the capsule of the brain, extensive bruises, broken bones and sores that will not heal, due to Barlow's disease, without having been subjected to anything but the tenderest of loving care."
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