An often underestimated gesture that can cause serious brain trauma, leading to coma or death. It is the phenomenon of Shaken Child Syndrome, at the center of the first Italian report carried out by Terre des Hommes.
It is a very serious, often silent form of violence that can change a newborn's life forever. It happens when an adult, overwhelmed by the inconsolable crying of the child, shakes him even for just a few seconds. An apparently banal gesture that can cause irreversible brain damage and which, in the most serious cases, can lead to coma or death.
"We are talking about a condition that is still largely unknown in our country - explains Federica Giannotta, Head of Advocacy and Italian Programs at Terre des Hommes - Yet it is one of the most serious forms of abusive head trauma in children under two years of age. Its danger does not lie in the duration of the gesture, but in the vulnerability of the newborn's body".
In fact, newborns are not miniature adults. “The head is proportionally larger and heavier, the neck muscles are not yet developed and the brain is richer in water” - clarifies Sonia Bianchini, pediatrician medical director of the ASST Santi Paolo e Carlo – San Carlo Borromeo Hospital in Milan.
“When a child is shaken, the brain undergoes violent acceleration and deceleration movements which can cause hemorrhages, brain edema and permanent neurological damage” – adds Bianchini.
The Terre des Hommes investigation
Precisely to fill the gap in knowledge on this phenomenon, Terre des Hommes carried out the first national survey on cases of Shaken Baby Syndrome in Italy, analyzing the data collected between 2018 and 2022 in seven Italian hospitals.
The numbers, explains Giannotta, "do not describe a mass emergency, but an extreme severity: 47 confirmed cases, five deaths, very young children, in most cases under six months of age".
A particularly alarming fact also emerges from the study: in many cases the children had already been shaken previously.
"Neuroradiological investigations often show chronic lesions, a sign that the violence has been repeated over time without being recognized - underlines pediatrician Bianchini - This happens because the initial symptoms can be non-specific: vomiting, irritability, feeding difficulties. Without clinical suspicion, the risk is that the picture will be underestimated".
According to the report, one in three children had already arrived at the emergency room before the final diagnosis.
"Shaken Baby Syndrome does not only concern socially marginalized situations - specifies Giannotta - It can happen in any family. The main triggering factor is inconsolable crying, which reaches its peak between two weeks and six months of life".
Hence the importance of prevention and information. Knowing the risk means reducing it. Knowing that it is okay to put the child down in a safe place, step away for a moment and ask for help can save a life.
When culture becomes a resource for health
The cure does not only come through drugs, interventions and technologies. Medicine also increasingly looks at the quality of people's lives and their psychological well-being during the therapeutic process. It is from this perspective that the collaboration between Gemelli Isola and CoopCulture was born, which brings the cultural experience inside the hospital through innovative projects dedicated to patients.
“When we talk about health we cannot limit ourselves to the clinical dimension alone” - explains Vincenzo Valentini, Director of the Department of Oncology and Imaging of the Isola Tiberina - Gemelli Isola Hospital. Who adds: “The person facing an illness needs effective treatments, but also to maintain a relationship with their emotional, cultural and social dimension”.
Hence the idea of using new technologies to make cultural contents and immersive paths accessible even to those in hospital. Thanks to viewers and digital tools, patients can virtually visit places of art and sites of cultural interest, living an experience capable of interrupting, at least for a few moments, the routine of therapies and healthcare. An initiative that aims to bring the person, not just the patient, back to the centre, offering cultural experiences capable of accompanying the treatment process.
“The objective is to bring culture where it is normally more difficult to reach it” - underlines Teresa Di Bartolomeo, Product Development Director of CoopCulture. “We believe that access to cultural heritage can contribute to people's well-being and that innovation can help us build new forms of participation even in complex contexts such as hospitals” – continues Di Bartolomeo.
The initiative is part of an increasingly developed trend that studies the relationship between art, culture and health, with the aim of improving the patient experience and humanizing treatment paths. Because today the challenge is not just to cure the disease, but to take care of the person as a whole.
