Shaken baby syndrome found to be evidence-based diagnosis

Sept. 19 (UPI) -- Physicians have come to a consensus that shaken baby syndrome is an evidence-based diagnosis, despite controversy in courts and the media.

Shaken Baby Syndrome: Science vs. Myth will be presented today at the 2017 American Academy of Pediatrics National Conference & Exhibition in Chicago.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, shaken baby syndrome is a preventable and severe form of physical child abuse resulting in brain injury to an infant or child.

Shaken baby syndrome is one of many injuries known as abusive head trauma, or AHT, and is most common in children under age 5, with children under 1 at most risk.

According to Dr. Sandeep Narang, head of the Child Abuse Pediatrics Division at Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago and associate professor of pediatrics at Northwestern Feinberg School of Medicine, there is a misconception that the medical community had changed its opinion on shaken baby syndrome as an evidence-based diagnosis.

"You simply have people who are unwilling to accept the large body of data or evidence," Narang said in a press release.

Narang and his team surveyed physicians who treat injured children at 10 leading children's hospitals throughout the United States in 2016 and found that 88 percent of the 628 physicians who responded considered shaken baby syndrome a valid diagnosis and 93 percent said AHT was a valid diagnosis.

The majority of physicians surveyed said that shaking a baby, with or without impact, was likely to result in subdural hematoma, severe retinal hemorrhages, coma or death.