Birth Trauma

Abstract

It is rare to detect a traumatic bony lesion in a very small child. In the first two or three years of life, children are constantly checked by a responsible adult, and the incidence of skeletal trauma is low. Instances of trauma include:

• obstetric pseudo-paralysis

• “birth fractures”

• accidents that often occur in the nursing infant, such as falls from the changing table, which are often the cause of cranial fracture

• events that also involve the person caring for the child, such as accidental falls or, in particular, road accidents

• non-accidental lesions, which include the condition of “battered child syndrome”

• “toddler’s fractures”, or fractures that occur when the child is walking with an uncertain gait.