Shaken baby syndrome faces new questions in court

The article starts off with the story of a foreign daycare worker, Reuda, who is accused of shaking a 5 month old baby, Noah, she cared for in her home daycare. She was a very trusted woman with an exceptionally clean record. Noah's parents say he was starting to be a fussy baby, as he was beginning to eat solid foods and stopped taking his afternoon nap. They believe these are the reasons Reuda was frustrated the day she allegedly shook him.

This is a sad article, filled with sad stories. A perfectly normal and happy baby boy whose life is ruined from being shaken. The thing that doesn't sit right with me is she doesn't speak English very well. There are so many unanswered questions in this case, in my eyes. Did she actually shake Noah? Did something else happen? Did she admit to shaking him 3 or 4 times? Was the language barrier an issue? Why would the social worker lie? Did the Reuda shake Noah, but in her opinion, "move kind of rough"? Was there something else that could have happened? As I was reading my mind was racing with these questions. And many many more as I read on and learned of other similar cases.

After reading this article I am left sitting here wondering how do you decide if someone shook the baby or not. It is way too much information to take in, on both sides, but it is an amazing article and extremely informative. The reader is kept interested by telling so many stories of the same situation but with so many possibilities of what has actually happened to the baby. The author added some educational information, which was nice. It flowed very well and kept me reading and wanting more. I enjoyed the facts at the end describing that a lot of doctors widely disagree about reading CT scans to diagnose shaken baby syndrome. I was surprised to learn how doctors decided what symptoms showed shaken baby syndrome, which is an experiment done with monkeys; It was not done with babies, or even monkeys being shaken. I think the author chose the perfect way to end the article with a statement by a woman who was accused of shaking a baby, and was later released from prison, "“A baby has died,” she said simply. “They want to blame somebody.” Its very true. Its also very dangerous to form an opinion, a  wrong one, and then work day and night to prove it to be true.