The incidence of shaken baby syndrome has doubled and its mortality has increased nine-fold in the Paris region during the Covid-19 pandemic, reveals a study published in the journal JAMA Network Open. Research teams from the Necker-Enfants Malades hospital of the AP-HP, and from the University of Paris Cité associated with a team from Inserm analyzed the evolution of the incidence and severity of the syndrome of shaken baby (SBS) among infants in Ile-de-France during the first two years of the Covid-19 pandemic (the 2020-2021 period) compared to the pre-pandemic period (the 2017-2019 period).
SBS is the most common cause of traumatic death in infants in high-income countries. Non-lethal forms of SBS are associated with severe long-term morbidity such as neurodevelopmental disorders (epilepsy, motor and visual impairments, language disorders, intellectual disability, and behavioral abnormalities) resulting in lifelong disability.
It’s in 2021 that everything goes haywire
In all, 99 infants with SBS were included in the study. For all these babies, the signs of seriousness of the violence inflicted were very frequent: 87% had a rupture of the vein-bridges (which connect the brain to the internal wall of the skull), 75% of retinal haemorrhages, 32% of fractures, 26 % status epilepticus, and 13% died. Compared to the pre-pandemic period (2017-2019), the incidence of SBS remained stable in 2020 then doubled in 2021 and its mortality increased ninefold, the study reveals.
Concerns had been expressed very early on by the scientific, medical and social community about a risk of an “explosion” in the incidence of child abuse and neglect, in particular SBS, following the Covid-19 pandemic and containment measures, recall the authors of the study. For the research teams, the fact that this massive increase in SBS did not occur during the first year of the pandemic when containment and mitigation measures were at their maximum, but during its second year, could be explained by a accumulation of psychosocial distress.