The infant gives parents many moments of happiness, but this does not prevent the presence of many moments of confusion in which parents do not know how to behave with their child when he cries and screams non-stop. Here you must completely refrain from “shaking” the infant to silence him!
The first thing that comes to a father and mother’s mind when they hear an infant crying at night is to pick him up and start shaking him without realizing the seriousness of this matter. Doctors warn of the danger of this behavior, which may kill the infant, especially since the infant’s neck muscles are weak, and thus shaking him forcefully directly affects his head and brain. According to data from the German health insurance company Schnecker Krankenkasse, shaking a child has the same consequences as colliding with a car traveling at 50 km/hour.
Shaking the child forcefully can lead to rupture of the blood vessels in the brain and bleeding in the cornea. Thus, this behavior may hinder the child’s growth or cause serious problems with hearing and vision, and sometimes it leads to death. According to data from the health insurance company, about 100 children in Germany die annually as a result of their parents losing control over them while shaking them forcefully.
But the danger of shaking a child should not hinder normal play with him, according to a report published by the German magazine “Eltern,” concerned with family affairs.
