Causes of Shaken Baby Syndrome
The first few months of childhood are tremendously stressful to new parents. Mothers (who often carry more than their fair share of this newly acquired responsibility) are struggling to recover from pregnancy, labor, and delivery as well as deal with an individual who is completely dependent upon them. Breastfeeding mothers may carry an even larger responsibility since they are uniquely responsible for their infant's nutrition. Studies of normal and healthy infants have demonstrated that the number of minutes per day spent crying increases weekly during the first two months of life, stabilizes for three to four weeks, and then drops remarkably. This mixture of physical and emotional parental exhaustion, coupled with what seems to be never-ending crying, can push many over the edge. High-risk infants (premature babies, those with chronic medical conditions, etc.) commonly extract an even higher toll on parents. This may be due to the more demanding requirements of such children and/or a belief of an increase in infant vulnerability. For some caregivers, physical punishment represents the only way to free themselves of their frustrations.