A 1-year-old boy was brought into St. Joseph Mercy Woodland Health in Brighton with some very concerning symptoms. Doctors were immediately certain the little boy had been badly shaken. He was placed on a ventilator and transferred to a nearby children’s hospital. CPS was called, and then the police were notified. Officers, after hearing the details of the baby’s symptoms, spoke to the mother and her live-in boyfriend to determine what had happened. It was clearly SBS…

The live-in boyfriend admitted to pushing the baby down onto the floor three times, causing him to hit his head repeatedly, and then shaking him violently. The mother, who is currently pregnant with her boyfriend’s child, was in the room when the events took place. She saw what happened, and told police all the details. Her boyfriend was arrested and is awaiting arraignment at the Livingston County Jail.

“Shaken Baby Syndrome” is a very real problem.

Babies scream. They cry, sometimes for hours without stopping, and it can be almost unbearable for the parent or caregiver, who can’t get away from the piercing and unrelenting noise. In a number of cases, this has led to babies being violently shaken by caregivers who are so overwhelmed or frustrated, that they lose control and shake those babies. But that single bad choice is one that alters the course of their future, and the future of that baby. 

Many babies who’ve been violently shaken don’t survive. Those that do live with irrevocable brain damage that changes the quality of their life forever. It’s an absolute tragedy, and as parents we can’t begin to imagine how heartbreaking it must be, either to lose a child to violence, or to know that your child’s life is forever changed because of someone’s momentary loss of control. But not every “shaken baby” is actually a shaken baby…

Many other conditions mimic the signs of SBS

For years, whenever a doctor encountered the “triad” – those three specific symptoms all present at the same time in an unresponsive baby, the answer was swift and unequivocal. Without a doubt, it was Shaken Baby Syndrome. Or so they thought. As it turns out, new advances in science are revealing that there’s so much more to the science of diagnosing injured babies and toddlers than we previously believed. There are many other medical conditions whose symptoms mimic SBS, including Menkes Disease, Benign Extra-Axial Collections, Osteogenesis Imperfecta, and Ehlers Danlos Syndrome.

As experienced child abuse defense attorneys here at The Kronzek Firm, we’ve spent years fighting on behalf of parents and caregivers falsley accused of shaking children. We know that there’s ALWAYS more to the story than the prosecutor wants to admit, and that the junk science they present in the courtroom is usually only a small part of the whole picture. So if you’ve been accused of shaking a baby, call us immediately at 866 766 5245 and get the help you need to protect yourself and your future!