SBS: Texas: Jose Trevino

Dec 17, 2010 12:03 By Michael Slother

LUBBOCK, TX (KCBD)-  authorities arrested 19-year-old Jose Trevino on a charge of injury to a child.
According to the police report, Trevino was helping his girlfriend baby sit back in November when a 6-month-old boy began crying when Trevino's girlfriend was in the shower. In the report, Trevino admitted he was frustrated and says he shook the baby with a ‘back and forth motion.' In his statement to police, Trevino said he knew he shook too hard when the child's eyelids started to close and he stopped breathing.
Lynette Wilson from the Family Guidance and Outreach Center of Lubbock picked up a doll to demonstrate what can happen when a baby is shaken hoping to stop the crying. She says it's the worst mistake you can make. The doll had red lights throughout the baby's head to show where bleeding occurs.
It's called shaken baby syndrome, or SBS. Statistics from the Family Guidance and Outreach Center say 25% of those affected will die; the others can suffer severe brain damage leading to strokes, retardation, or blindness.
Local physician Dr. Laszio Nagy showed us a CT scan of the brain of a shaken baby. Visible white patches from hemorrhages turned to missing portions of the brain after a few months.
Wilson said SBS is the most preventable type of child abuse, and usually starts with a frustrated parent. She said if you can't get the child to stop crying, it may be best to leave the room. "You can exercise, you can go in the bathroom and scream, you can go outside and scream. You must remove yourself from that child," she said.
Statistics from the center also suggest men are responsible for the majority of SBS cases, claiming they may be less familiar with the baby's needs. Dr. Nagy says experience is also a factor. "When parents are young and inexperienced, they are young and don't know what to do," Nagy said.
That's exactly why Wilson hopes parents will combat the problem with education. "If only they knew that you never shake a baby and what can happen to that little brain, I do not believe they would shake their baby."
The Family Guidance and Outreach Center of Lubbock offers classes to help educate parents on shaken baby syndrome and a variety of other topics at no cost.
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