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A journey into the shaken baby syndrome/abusive head trauma controversy

cambridgeblog.org

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Re: A journey into the shaken baby syndrome/abusive head trauma controversy

#521

Post by volkl48 »

fusslo wrote: post #347

since everyone else is sharing an anecdote: When I was 14 or so I fell off my dirt bike and broke my arm, both bones in my forearm. Went to the hospital. About 5 people asked me how it happened taking about an hour, while I was WRITHING in pain. Finally, I complained to the right nurse and she got me something for the pain. It was just enough to stop crying, not enough to stop feeling it. I later found out that the i…

While I certainly don't agree with delaying your treatment....your size/weight vs your mother's is irrelevant - just because she's who brought you in doesn't mean that she's the only person who could have abused you.

For all they know you've got a father or uncle or whoever that's huge and has anger problems who broke it.

One abusive family member and a partner who's covering for/trying to make up for their behavior (and may be being abused themselves) is a pretty common type of abusive situation.

Re: A journey into the shaken baby syndrome/abusive head trauma controversy

#523

Post by DoreenMichele »

raducu wrote: post #189
DoreenMichele wrote: post #14

My oldest son has special needs. He's 2e -- gifted and learning disabled -- and has a serious medical condition associated with being very underweight. I put him in preschool to get him to talk. He could use sentences but wasn't. At the start of kindergarten, first, second and third grade, I spoke with the teacher, explained he was difficult, let them know I welcomed communication on any issue. They were thrilled and…

What was the medical issue for your child being underweight, if you could please share that?

He has a form of cystic fibrosis.

Re: A journey into the shaken baby syndrome/abusive head trauma controversy

#524

Post by DrThunder »

firesteelrain wrote: post #321

“ Let there be no misunderstanding on the point that shaking is an absolutely real and dramatic form of child abuse. Inflicted head trauma is a devastating condition and a definite cause of traumatic brain injuries, including intracranial hemorrhage. Many medical determinations of SBS/AHT are made on children who have effectively been victims of violent intentional trauma. Prevention efforts against all forms of chil…

You must have skimmed the article because it said over and over that it was basically impossible to definitively identify that a baby was shaken. It's a diagnosis they use when they're not sure.

Re: A journey into the shaken baby syndrome/abusive head trauma controversy

#526

Post by Sanzig »

gilbetron wrote: post #454
Fire-Dragon-DoL wrote: post #250

When I was getting ready to turn dad for the first time, I read a few books on pregnancy, children and parenting. My trust on medicine dropped substantially when I discovered that doctors have poor notion of statistics, so they take for granted improper studies results. I remember one classic one is the "no coffee when pregnant", the study says this causes problems, the test was performed on rats and by feeding them…

When my wife was pregnant 15 years ago, I did a lot of similar reading about various things. One was home vs hospital birth, and at that time at least, there was a strong vibe of "home birth is best birth" going around. Many people linked to a study (which I can no longer find!) in Norway maybe? It was a big study that "showed" that home birth was safer than hospital birth. However, if you dug into the study, you'd f…

The home birth obsession makes me so angry. My wife had a really bad postpartum hemorrhage when our daughter was born. Thankfully, we were in the hospital, so the obstetrics team was able to stop the bleeding and get her stabilized. She'd have likely died if it was a home birth.

What's even crazier is that in most of the US, midwives only need a high school diploma and a midwifery certificate - or in many states, no education is required at all as the title "midwife" is not protected. The vast majority of the rest of the developed world requires midwives to either be professional nurses with additional training in midwifery, or to have a special four year midwifery degree (eg: here in Canada, midwifery is a bachelor's degree). Many parents in the US who opt for a home birth are likely unaware of how underqualified many American midwives are compared to their international counterparts to respond to an obstetric emergency.

Re: A journey into the shaken baby syndrome/abusive head trauma controversy

#527

Post by paradox242 »

tokai wrote: post #405
raducu wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did not know this detail, I know the Danish state offered apologies, the charges were dropped and the child was returned to the parents.

Yeah, nobody know the exact parts of the case. As its semi-secret (to protect the child and parents I guess). While the parents were cleared, this case is definitely not appropriate to this discussion as it was definitely not only hemorrhaging that started it. If a hospital gets a toddler with fractures on their skull, society should damn well figure out how it got them and stop it from happening again.

I fully understand where you are coming from, but have you had a toddler?

Re: A journey into the shaken baby syndrome/abusive head trauma controversy

#528

Post by rossant »

tivert wrote: post #459
gwd wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could call it "moral self-image maintenance bias": A bias towards maintaining your self-image as an upright, moral person.

I think it's probably just a kind of "avoidance" or "denial." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experiential_avoidance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denial_(Freud) HN and software engineers have bias to over-focus on the cognitive, but I think the key experience here is emotional distress .

I agree. It's kind of ironic you mention "denial". It turns out this is one of the favorite attacks by "SBS proponents" against those who challenge the scientific reliability of the diagnosis. We are called "denialists" and we're accused of "denying the existence of child abuse" (?). Parents in my organization (Adikia) who face false allegations of abuse are said to be in "denial" of their own abusive behavior. This story line appears to be quite credible and powerful within the medical and judicial communities.

Here's one among thousands of examples, from a really terrible paper by one such powerful SBS proponent here in France [1] (another of his papers was actually retracted this year [2]).

"Fake news 11: the caretakers’ denial is sincere

Clinicians and defenders can become intoxicated by the denials of parents suffering the agony of having their child in dire condition, and at the same time being grilled for their possible responsibility. The mental mechanisms of self-denial are well-known to psychiatrists. A perpetrator, after a violent burst, and faced with its terrible consequences, can experience a dissociation mechanism similar to witnesses of catastrophes, dissociation being understood as “a break between the memory, the perception, the consciousness and the identity…when faced with unbearable feelings”. Sincere denial easily elicits compassion from the medical staff as well as defenders, a natural response which is enhanced by professional training. Some authors have documented with functional imaging the sincerity of denial in a case of convicted child abuse and concluded that the sincerity of denial is not a criterion for innocence."

[1] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00381-021-05357-8

[2] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00381-023-05889-1

Re: A journey into the shaken baby syndrome/abusive head trauma controversy

#529

Post by gwd »

rossant wrote: post #528
tivert wrote: post #459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's probably just a kind of "avoidance" or "denial." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experiential_avoidance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denial_(Freud) HN and software engineers have bias to over-focus on the cognitive, but I think the key experience here is emotional distress .

I agree. It's kind of ironic you mention "denial". It turns out this is one of the favorite attacks by "SBS proponents" against those who challenge the scientific reliability of the diagnosis. We are called "denialists" and we're accused of "denying the existence of child abuse" (?). Parents in my organization (Adikia) who face false allegations of abuse are said to be in "denial" of their own abusive behavior. This…

You obviously have more experience than I do; but two phrases I'd be tempted to try out in these discussions are, "If you were wrong, would you want to know?" And at some point later "How would you know if you were wrong?"
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