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Report says 90,000 U.S.
infants maltreated a year
By Will Dunham,
Reuters News Service
Editing by Peter Cooney,
Yahoo Online News,
4/3/08
|
 The Web address of this article is
http://sfhelp.org/gwc/news/infant_abuse..htm
This report provides some "official" 2006 figures on an often-neglected type
of American child-abuse - mistreatment of children under one year old. The
summary doesn't estimate how much such abuse goes unsampled or unreported.
The number of cases reported probably understates the true number of abused
infants, since typical parents would try to hide or deny it.
A CDC official is quoted as saying such abuse and neglect "is largely
preventable" - but does not suggest how. The finding that much of the infant
mal-treatment related to maternal drug use is a clear ex-ample of how the
effects of the [wounds + unawareness]
gets passed down our generations.
This non-profit Website proposes
prevention IS possible if
wounded parents (a) hit
and take responsibility for (b) reducing their psychological
and
and (c) committing to
Without public education and appropriate legislation, breaking the [wounds +
unawareness]
isn't likely (in my opinion).
The links and hilights below
are mine. - Peter Gerlach, MSW
+ + +
About one of every 43 U.S. infants
is physically abused or neglected annually, and those babies are
especially at risk in the first week of their lives, U.S. health officials
said on Thursday.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention said in its first report on maltreatment of babies up to age
1 that 91,278 of them were physically abused or neglected in 2006.
Other new government figures showed that 499 babies up to age 1 were killed
in maltreatment cases in 2006.
About a third of the maltreated
infants -- 29,881 -- were abused or neglected before they were 1 week old,
mostly during their first four days, the CDC said. Many of those cases may
be linked to maternal drug use, the CDC said.
Physical abuse included beating, kicking, biting, burning and
shaking, and neglect included abandon-ment, maternal drug use or
failing to meet basic needs like housing, food, clothing and access to
medical care, according to the report.
The findings were particularly
troubling because children who suffer such abuse tend to go on to have nu-merous
health and other problems, officials said.
"The findings do demonstrate a clear
pattern of early neglect and physical abuse that is largely prevent-able,"
Ileana Arias, who heads injury prevention efforts at the U.S. Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention, told reporters.
Based on data from child protection agencies in 45 states, the report found
that more than 2.3 percent of infants up to age 1 suffered substantiated
nonfatal maltreatment in fiscal 2006, which ran from October 1, 2005, to
September 30, 2006.
"Unfortunately, the report didn't surprise me," Jim Hmurovich, who heads the
Chicago-based advocacy group
Prevent Child Abuse America, said in a
telephone interview.
"When a child is born, no matter how well the parent has been prepared for
the coming of the child, it's a very stressful time. We know that the
younger a child is, the higher the rate of victimization," Hmurovich added.
Most cases of maltreatment in the
first week were reported by medical personnel, the CDC said. Thirteen
percent of those week-old babies had been subjected to physical abuse.
"One hypothesis for the concentration of maltreatment and neglect reports in
the first few days of life is that the majority of reports resulted from
maternal or newborn drug tests," the CDC report said.
The report said 905,000 U.S.
children of all ages were victims of maltreatment in 2006.
Maltreatment is the third leading cause of death of U.S. children under 3,
Arias said.
CDC epidemiologist Rebecca Leeb said most similar previous research focused
on children from birth to age 3. Because this is the first data looking at
babies up to age 1, it is unclear whether the problem is increasing or
decreasing, Leeb said.
"We looked at some rates in Canada and it looks like the rates are fairly
similar to what they're seeing. But we have no idea what the trends are at
this time," Leeb added.
Slightly more boys than girls were victims. The CDC report did not provide
rates among racial or ethnic groups.
Copyright © 2008 Reuters Limited. Copyright © 2008 Yahoo! Inc. All rights
reserved.
+ + +
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September 04, 2010
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