How to Prevent Shaken Baby Syndrome

All the time I'm reading in the paper about yet another case of shaken baby syndrome, in which the mother, father, or the mother's boyfriend, shake a baby so violently, that it causes the baby's brain to slosh up against the skull.

A baby's brain is like Jello, so imagine a small, sealed Tupperware container of Jello. Shake it and watch what happens to the Jello. This is essentially what happens to a baby's brain when some moron shakes the baby in an attempt to stop the baby from crying.

So my question is this: Where in heaven's name do people ever get the idea, that a baby will stop crying if you shake it? Well, of course it will stop crying if you shake it violently enough-because the baby will then go into a coma.

When the brain bangs into the skull, vascular damage, and other kinds of damage, occur, including the possibility of stroke. These babies often end up with permanent brain damage. Some never come out of the comas. Some exist in a vegetative state. Sometimes, the mother decides to have life support pulled.

So what makes a person think a baby will magically stop crying if it's shaken like how a dog shakes a rag doll in its mouth? Do these idiots ever imagine how THEY'D react, if some giant four times their size hoisted them up and wildly shook them? If anything, a baby will cry harder from the shock and pain of being shaken. Hello?

Suppose, beginning in the first grade, kids were taught about the dangers of shaking a baby. Teachers spent only one minute explaining about this, at the end of the class. Just one minute. And every day, at the end of class, for just one minute, teachers drilled students about shaken baby syndrome.

The teacher would have her kids recite in unison: "Never shake a baby, no matter how hard it's crying." Every day, the little kids recite this. The teacher explains why. She has the class recite in unison something like, "Because shaking a baby might kill it."

All throughout grade school, this lesson is taught. Kids are instructed to write, "Never shake a baby" on the blackboard. As they get older, they are told to write on a piece of paper, three reasons why you should never shake a baby. Three possible outcomes. Older students are invited to even discuss this problem for a few minutes, at the end of class, a few times a week.

By the time kids get their driver's licenses, they have recited the rule 3,000 times. They have written about it. They have talked about it. It is ingrained into their bones: Never shake a baby.

Might this provide a deterrent, then, to shaking a baby, when these kids are one day in a house alone with a baby who won't stop crying? I think so. Something that's ingrained into your blood since early childhood will never be forgotten. It's like knowing to stop at a red light. You are taught this since Day 1.

I was once walking behind a raving mad man in Chicago. He was yelling and shouting to imaginary demons as he briskly walked along the sidewalk. He was approaching a busy intersection. I wondered if he was going to walk straight on through, as he was so absorbed in arguing with whatever he was hallucinating.

But he stopped at the curb. The sign said DON'T WALK. As he waited, he continued ranting and raving, throwing his arms about. When the sign said WALK, he proceeded on. Never once did he pause with the ranting and raving. Obviously, something that had been taught to him, drilled into him, since early childhood, stuck with him, even though he was deranged. This is the power of early childhood preaching. And if it could work with this man, then I'm sure that "Never shake a baby!" could work with any child.