marieclaire.com.au 55SPLASH NEWS; GETTY IMAGES;
NEW STRAITS TIMES
NOVEMBER 15 2012
In Australia,
babies are six
times more likely
to die from SBS
than they are
from drowningFrom left to right: Dr Waney
Squier, the UK baby brain
specialist, is one of the most
outspoken critics of using
the “triad” of symptoms to
diagnose Shaken Baby
Syndrome. She famously
changed sides and testified
to have Lorraine Harris’
conviction overturned; the
dangers of shaking babies
continue to be outlined in
thousands of media articles;
medical ethicist Niels Lynöe
led the latest controversial
study which slammed the
current SBS diagnosis.Squier also notes that in order for shaking to cause
the triad, an adult would have to use considerable force.
She believes this force would leave visible evidence of
trauma on the baby such as neck and spinal damage,
bruising and damaged and torn brain tissue.
“People harm children – it happens. But I have
a problem accepting that they can inflict serious brain
damage without leaving any marks,” she says.
Lorraine Harris served 17 months of her sentence
before being released on parole. Although she had her
freedom, her life was unrecognisable: no partner, sepa-
rated from her daughters, a dead son and another
adopted out to parents who wouldn’t allow any contact.
When her case came up for appeal in 2005, Harris
wanted to go beyond freedom – she wanted to clear her
name. She was dumbfounded to find Squier had switched
sides and was willing to testify for her defence. Her
conviction was overturned, but it was a hollow victory.A
ccording to statistics, SBS is rife in Australia
with babies six times more likely to die from
SBS than they are from drowning.
As many as 90 children will
become victims of shaking each year, most
often at the hands of the people they trust
the most. Tragically, 18 of these babies will
die. “It’s very common,” says Dr Brian
Owler, consultant neurosurgeon at the
Sydney Children’s Hospital in Westmead.
“When I started [working in paediatrics]
it surprised me how much of our time was
taken up with non-accidental injuries,
which included shaken babies.”
If medics suspect a baby has a non-accidental injury,
says Owler, they involve specialists from the Child Pro-
tection Unit (CPU) who can investigate. “The fact that
CPU even exists in children’s hospitals says something
about the frequency at which these situations occur,” he
notes. While Owler concedes that criticism of the triad
existed before the controversial Swedish study, he says
the CPU are trained to decipher which babies are likely
to have been shaken. Owler was reluctant to be drawn on
whether the new research would be the catalyst for any
changes to current processes.
“Sometimes there are other explanations. But in
many cases we know shaking is the cause of the
problem,” he says.Dr William Liley, SBS specialist and Queensland GP
in the remote Cape York community, has seen the devas-
tating effects of SBS firsthand. He believes that most
SBS cases occur when a baby cries excessively and the
parent or caregiver reaches their limit and snaps. “The
baby won’t stop crying and just won’t settle. The carer
forgets just how much bigger than the baby they are and
how vulnerable the baby is. No-one in their right mind
intentionally inflicts this injury. There is no
premeditation, no monster, just ordinary people beyond
their tolerance limits who spend the rest of their lives
in deep regret,” Liley explains.
If the current SBS diagnostic tool has a question
mark over it, thousands of innocent people have been
wrongly convicted of murder and assault over the past
30 years says Mark Freeman, a defence attorney in
Pennsylvania who specialises in SBS.
Freeman notes that the US government and the SBS
medical community around the world are fully
committed to the SBS triad hypothesis, so he isn’t
optimistic that the new research will change the law any
time soon. “I am sceptical that [it] will make much, if
any, difference in the prosecution of such
cases,” he says. Lynöe is more hopeful.
“It has already had consequences for how
guardians and parents are convicted in
courts – at least in Sweden,” he says.
Australian medical anthropologist and
sociologist, Dr Helen Hayward-Brown,
agrees. “I do feel it will have some impact
because it is underlining the issues which
need to be brought forward, but I believe
it will take a while for the impact to filter
through the system,” she told marie claire.
“There is a strong resistance within the medical
and legal communities to acknowledge these issues, as
so many individuals on a global basis have been
convicted based on the triad alone. To acknowledge the
issues would mean that it would be necessary to revisit
all those convictions.”
Yet even those who have been cleared of wrongdoing
still have to live with the severe tarnish of the accusation.
Trisha Brant, 45, a former family daycare manager from
Illinois, was accused of shaking a boy in her care in 2014.
Although the child – who was just 22 months old at the
time – survived, experts said that his brain injuries
proved that he had been a victim of SBS.