Comment by Sander_Marechal
2 years ago
I've been made to watch a similar video here in The Netherlands. It's not bunk though. Violently shaking a baby will lead to trauma which can cause death. What this book is about is that there are other causes that can lead to the same symptoms. The video is right. Shaking a baby leads to AHT. But the reverse isn't. AHT does not mean that the baby has been shaken. There are many other causes for AHT.
I mean.. sure. But if you shoot a baby it will also harmed. Or stomp on it, or set fire to it.
So, why is this video specifically about shaking? Because of this very specific and narrow conspiracy theory that takes children away from their parents.
Didn't the article state that is actually unlikely it leads to AHT?
I think the article says that shaking a baby will give you lots of different symptoms, including bruises etc. And you can't really get AHT from shaking without also getting bruises etc.
That means if you see 'AHT' without bruises (etc) it was probably not actual shaking.
Yeah, it's hard to say for sure what kind of injuries you'll get from violent shaking, as we obviously can't reproduce it on actual babies, and there are so few well-described cases. Studies have been made on animal models, showing a constellation of traumatic injuries, but no clear, obvious, and reproducible pattern so far. Strikingly, the isolated "triad" of subdural and retinal hemorrhage with brain edema hasn't really been reproduced in any animal model so far [1].
Anyway, we don't need this level of scientific detail and knowledge to say that no one should ever shake a baby. All brutal gestures are obviously harmful and dangerous.
[1] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00381-022-05577-6
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