Ray
Ferris is a retired child-protection worker and the author of The Art of Child Protection, and an occasional contributor here.
When
I say that Dr. Colbourne is on the warpath again, most of you will not know
what I mean. So let me explain about the shaken baby syndrome.
Doctors
who believe in the shaken baby syndrome hypothesis claim that when three
medical symptoms are present, they can only be explained by a shaken baby
opinion. They claim that when these injuries
occur to an infant that they can tell the cause of injury. They claim, they
could only happen because the baby has been shaken. Hence the acronym of SBS
syndrome. The reason why such an allegation is especially damaging is that it
is an automatic allegation that an injury has been deliberately inflicted and
is thus criminal and proof that the parent is unfit. Well you can see for
yourselves that if the hypothesis is incorrect, that it can result in horrible
wrongs being done to parents and other caregivers.
