Subdural haemorrhages in infants

BMJ 1998;317:1538-1539 ( 5 December )

Editorials

Subdural haemorrhages in infants

Almost all are due to abuse but abuse is often not recognised

Papers p 1558

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

In this issue Jayawant et al report the results of a study of the incidence, causes, and outcome of subdural haemorrhagesin infancy in a defined geographical area in England and Walesfrom 1993 to 1995 (p 1558).¹ This subject is important because,as this study confirms, most subdural haemorrhages are due toabuse. The subdural haemorrhage is just one element of the braininjury in infants who have suffered non-accidental head injury(caused either by shaking alone or by shaking and impact).²

Ascertainment seems to have been thorough and the results are likely to be generalisable to the rest of the United Kingdom.The results suggest that a large district general hospital canexpect, on average, to see an infant with a subdural haemorrhageevery year. Most of these infants needed intensive care and, asin other studies, the outcome was poor. ³ ⁴ Assuming thatthe results are generalisable, this paper . . . [Full text of this article]

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Looking after infants
BMJ 1998 317: 0. [Full Text] [PDF]

Looking after infants
BMJ 1998 317: 0. [Full Text] [PDF]

Subdural haemorrhages in infants: population based study: S Jayawant, A Rawlinson, F Gibbon, J Price, J Schulte, P Sharples, J R Sibert, and A M Kemp
BMJ 1998 317: 1558-1561. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]