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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

#551

Post by pyuser583 »

stephen_g wrote: post #127

Amazing that bit about child welfare organisations fighting against the science, when clearly taking children away based on false accusations is clearly far worse for the child’s welfare, not to mention the parents’! It’s just incredible the injustice that can be done in the name of protecting children. I really do wonder if it’s cultural or some kind of innate psychological irrarionality that seems stronger in some…

The “passion” goes beyond this specific issue. Child abuse specialist doctors have come to some sketchy conclusions, only to have the system cover for them.

Part of the issue is they exist in several systems simultaneously: medical system, child-welfare system, and criminal justice system.

Are they there to cure disease, ensure the child had a safe home environment, or put an abuser in prison. Answer: all of the above.

Here’s a good example:

https://wisconsinwatch.org/2022/01/alaska-couple-loses-custo...

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

#552

Post by pyuser583 »

fnordpiglet wrote: post #217

This article reminded me of another local story about a doctor who provides assessment beyond the knee jerk child protection industrial complex - https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/child-abuse-or-med... This also reminds me a lot of the indoctrination we went through at the hospital when my daughter was born. Despite being a high risk pregnancy we were railroaded into a natural birth. After nearly 24 hours of…

And people wonder why the fertility rate is falling.

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

#553

Post by irjustin »

CrHn3 wrote: post #469
irjustin wrote: post #453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's your assumption. Oh do correct me if I'm wrong. I'd love to hear your personal experience. Anyway... How can you close the gaps when the mother isn't producing milk? I'm actually confused because you keep telling me it's better, with links and everything, but... It's simply non existent for a lot of mothers. Non producing or a bad latch is enough to put a newborn baby at risk after one week. It's like you do…

I've breastfed multiple children with ups and downs of it being easy and hard, suffered through the struggle of learning to do it the first time as postpartum mother after major surgery, through teething, latch issues, biting, pure physical exhaustion, and the transition of going back to work that leads to decreased supply. I've watched close friends that have struggled with production with underweight, premature bab…

Apologies and Thanks for sharing your story.

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

#554

Post by dahfizz »

danenania wrote: post #496
cwmma wrote: post #491

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something similar happened recently in Massachusetts with a doctor seeing an injury the parents couldn't explain and the kid being taken away for a while. Injury turned out to probably have been done by the grandparents who never told the parents because the kid didn't fuss, but the kids were taken away in the middle of the night. https://www.nbcboston.com/investigations/massachusetts-dcf-e...

My first inclination here is to blame the doctor. Per the Hippocratic Oath, doctors need to understand the implications of making reports like this and only do so in cases where there isn't reasonable doubt or plausible explanations other than abuse. Separating children from parents and making accusations like this is extremely traumatic in itself, so the evidence bar needs to be very high. Even if the rules tell doc…

My first inclination is to blame DCF workers.

> These people are working in the shadows, in darkness," Lamanna said. "They can show up at your house in the middle of the night with no paperwork, no court order whatsoever, and say we’re removing under the B, we’ve decided an emergency exists."

> According to DCF’s 2022 quarterly report, about 60% of parents are reunited with their kids within a year after being removed by DCF.

Anyone who feels justified in stealing kids from parents in the middle of the night, without any due process, WITH A 60% MISS RATE, is completely and truly evil.

Seriously, more often than not DCF realizes they made a mistake and the kid goes back home. Insane.

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

#555

Post by dahfizz »

danenania wrote: post #536
ameister14 wrote: post #533

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you err on the 'some children are abused and die' side of things, and other people err on the 'some parents get separated from their children' side. I don't think the line is at doctors reporting, and I'll tell you why. There are many cases of MD's having patients where they know the whole family and can't believe that abuse would be going on, so they don't report things like spiral fractures and pattern bruising…

That would be fine if the investigations were fair and followed basic principles of jurisprudence like "innocent until proven guilty", but it's plain to see that kids are being separated based on very flimsy evidence. In my book, a doctor doesn't get to absolve themselves of responsibility by saying "just following orders" and that it's the investigative system that needs to be fixed. If they know the system is broke…

I think the point is that the blame lies with DCF, not the doctors. Doctors should report, and DCF should competently investigate. In this scenario, the doctor did their job and DCF did not.

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

#556

Post by dahfizz »

mark_up wrote: post #100
cm2012 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Adopting is no big deal. Being cuckolded is generally considered one of the biggest betrayals in the human experience. It's incredibly relevant to know if your spouse is faithful to you!

It might matter to you, but it has no bearing on the welfare of a child or the greater good of the community.

I assume you foster children, then?

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

#557

Post by phyzome »

lqet wrote: post #282
cjrp wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Has SIDS been linked to co-sleeping? I thought the risks of co-sleeping were more around accidentally rolling on or suffocating the baby.

That is also what we were told after birth. My personal opinion is that the advantages of co-sleeping far outweigh the risks. It is much less stressful for both the parents and the baby. My wife simply slept topless, turned (half-sleeping) to our baby whenever it was crying, and immediately fell back asleep.

Yeah, we coslept as well. We don't drink or do drugs, so we weren't in that risk group. Neither of us has been the type to fall out of bed (which would indicate lack of physical awareness during sleep). We put the baby between us, so she wouldn't roll off. We kept the room warm so there wouldn't be a risk of heavy quilts suffocating her.

And it was fantastic. No crying, no separation anxiety. Feeding was easy, so we all slept well.

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

#558

Post by btilly »

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…

I've always called this "cognitive dissonance", but it is the same thing that http://www.paulgraham.com/identity.html talks about. Once something becomes associated with your identity, you take threats to it as an existential attack on you. And immediately rationality goes out of the window. But we're not AWARE of ourselves being irrational - everything that we say seems obvious, natural, and right.

Our inability to judge extends to others.

It certainly deserves a better name.

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

#559

Post by btilly »

stephen_g wrote: post #223
tivert wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Amazing that bit about child welfare organisations fighting against the science, when clearly taking children away based on false accusations is clearly far worse for the child’s welfare, not to mention the parents’! This is just speculation, but I bet those groups (or their members) aren't always calmly and coolly trying to find the best policies protect the welfare of children. Instead they feel themselves on a k…

That is a point - and also, while I'm sure many are just misguided, and I generally don't want to assume malice when ignorance is a more likely cause, it is certainly interesting that some high-profile people on these 'heroic moral crusades' do then seem to get caught up in sexual misconduct scandals of their own surprisingly frequently...

It is easy to think bad things of others that you know to be true of yourself.

Another example is that a lot of anti-gay crusaders turned out to be closet gays who hated themselves.

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

#560

Post by razeh »

bluGill wrote: post #117
TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> latter seems to be evidence of the system working both well and as designed Prosecutors in America have one goal: close the case. At any cost, close the case. They are not interested in justice. They are not interested in finding the one who actually committed the crime. They are interested in closing the case. If that is “working as designed”, then we need to change the design.

Sure, but the accused should have a lawyer who is screaming about anything that is unreliable.

There’s no practical way for a defense lawyer to find out what the error rate is for, say, a state lab. Occasionally organizations can do this, for example the innocence project figured out that the FBI’s hair analysis was bogus for decades (https://www.fbi.gov/news/press-releases/fbi-testimony-on-mic...).
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