This family seems to have had an unfortunate experience. There are some very rare cases like .04 per 1.000 of which most are males(so around .07 per 1,000 re females) for poorly healing subdural swelling. What is additionally disconcerting is that their still were retinal hemorages which while can be caused by pitocin ought to have resolved before the time she was assessed. There are methods to analyse the retinal haemorrhages to discriminate the types of likely causes from abuse to other conditions.It's wrong to suggest other serious injuries go with shaken babies in the early months, it fits older babies. "Nice" parents if frustrated won't dream of bashing a frustratingly crying tiny infant and can resort to shaking that infant when unaware how dangerous it is.
Too many of the findings as appeared in this case would indicate a higher probability of the infant being at risk despite it being known such a diagnosis not being 100 % conclusive.Unfortunate, but understandable that an initial removal was the outcome for an 8 week old infant in those circumstances.
Initially there would be concerns of a probable risk that may have hoped that had the mother was temporarily vulnerable postpartum. Potential possibly resolvable by the next couple of months and seem better adjusted with the husband keen to be supportive in constructive safe care of their infant, going by their initial seemingly deep commitment to the infant.
What can confirm unease for the state investigation services is how the parents continue to interact with them.Their denial of doing anything to harm their infant, were it combined with an attitude of being perplexed by their infants test results, still had every chance of being over time gotten over if they appeared to take in how vulnerable an infant is to shaking. Even if assuming had it occurred, that parent had forgotten the episode, or too afraid to admit it, yet unlikely to do so again and keenly open to strategies of calm caring.Plus mother looking to promptly attend a doctor to assist with her well being( even if privately to cope with baby's removal not being supposedly unhinged).
Their exploring alternative explanations could be understood.Even offered as open exploration for extra options.
Their killer mistake was to nit pick about wether every test was exact in being signed for as well as presuming that their alternative possibilities had to be certainties and could not be any more definite than the states results as proof of shaking made them appear more risky in defiance, hostility and rigidity.
While in the earliest months providing breast milk is positive and understandable for the mother to want to be providing something useful to her removed child, the insistence of persisting would have only made her appear more rigid. Unfortunately there is an association with idealistic rigid mothering to be more prone to frustrated anger when babies don't respond like expected from their perfect benevolent mothering. Moving on to formula use would have been just as good for the infant, more convenient and more logical by 4-5 months at the latest.Have to LOL re making 12 months pumping milk and kept kid away another 8 months, what an achievement!!Personally I believe formula and faster home return would have been better for baby.
Sure they were entitled to sustain their defiant sense of righteousness and rigidity to breastfeeding, but it countered their otherwise committed visitation and presumably positive interactions that would have been observed. Therefore their daughter had to become a toddler of around a year to be returned to them. That the state returned their child at a much later age is not at all inconsistent with the earlier finding of being proved. The risks perceived for an early infant compared to a later aged baby with overall functional adults who sustain a commitment to their child no longer post part vulnerable are very different. Their inept handling inability to openly tune in to the states underlying hope to reunify them all meant they kept their daughter away for a far longer protracted time, for at least 8 months to 6 months extra.
Their are more cases where criticisms have been made and more mistakes made by zealous reuniting, failure to remove babies at risk. The statistics of their infants symptoms were lower for the alternative options to shaken baby syndrome. What that means when careful evaluations occur it will have saved more infants compared to the smaller number of cases where an infant was in the scarce minority where parents were innocent and an infant was removed.Plus there will be false claims of innocence that cannot be disproved after an infant was kept safe over the period of risk.
What is far more helpful is to help parents with negotiating the most constructive safe return of their child, wether guilty or innocent. Where parents show such a high commitment like this couple did to eventually being reunited with their child, the state understands that will eventually be the outcome. They have no gain in funding a baby for a long time to eventually go home. There need to be better advisors to help parents negotiate a path to regain their child and dissipate the states concern. The majority of children removed are correctly removed from very risky situations and life stages.These child services are not the enemy despite rare occasions when they may be wrong.