Shaken Baby Syndrome

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Recommended: The Effects of Maternal Alcohol Use on a Developing Fetus

There are many factors in which parents need to take into consideration before and after your baby is born that can affect their health. There are certain precautions every parent must take in order to keeping their child healthy. The first years of a child’s life (including in the womb) is very crucial to the child’s physical, mental, emotional, and social growth. Some of the resulting defects a child may have resulting from the irresponsibility of parents before and after the baby is born includes Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS), The Effects of Smoking on a Developing Fetus and/or Baby, Shaken Baby Syndrome, and Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). First, a woman drinking while pregnant risks giving birth to a child that may have to pay that …show more content…

One common death of babies is Shaken Baby Syndrome. Abusive head trauma occurs from injuries of one abusively shaking a baby. The perpetrators of these violent deaths are usually parents or caregivers. The anatomy of the baby is particular fragile, which puts these babies severely at risk for abusive head trauma. Most children who suffer from this are under 1 year old (frequent at 3 to 8 months), but there have been cases up to 5 years old. When one forcefully shakes a baby, the child's head rotates about the neck uncontrollably because infants' neck muscles aren't well developed and provide little support for their heads. This violent movement pulls the infant's brain back and forth within the skull, sometimes rupturing blood vessels and nerves throughout the brain and tearing tissue in the brain. The brain may hit the inside of the skull, causing bruising and bleeding. Children who survive this may be at risk for permanent blindness, seizures, and hearing loss. Although all accidental traumatic injuries in infants may be fatal, shaken baby injuries have the worst …show more content…

Alternatively, you should treat your own body right, especially when you have another one growing inside of you. If a couple is getting ready to have a baby, they should think about the health factors and the steps they’re going to take to keep him or her as healthy as possible. All children deserve to live a disease-free life. Being a parent is a lifetime job and should be taken very seriously.

Works Cited

Jackson Jr., Harry. "Pregnant Women Should Just Say No to Drinking." St. Louis Post
Dispatch (St. Louis, MO). Feb. 23 2007: n.p. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 16 Mar. 2014.
"Effects of Smoking While Pregnant: Dangers to Your Baby." WebMD. WebMD, n.d.
Web. 16 Mar. 2014.
"NINDS Shaken Baby Syndrome Information Page." Shaken Baby Syndrome
Information Page: National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke
(NINDS). N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Mar. 2014.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
11 Feb. 2014. Web. 16 Mar. 2014.
"How Smoking during Pregnancy Affects You and Your Baby." BabyCenter. N.p., n.d.
Web. 14 Mar. 2014.
"Fetal Alcohol Syndrome." KidsHealth - the Web's Most Visited Site about Children's
Health. Ed. Louis E. Bartoshesky. The Nemours Foundation, 01 Nov. 2011. Web.
13 Mar.

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