Various researches have shown that the cause of death in babies is trauma. The injuries that cause death are provoked when a baby is thrown, hit or shaken. This means that saving your baby should be number 1 on your list.

Experienced parents will know that shaking a baby is wrong, but new parents sometimes don’t know this and are not aware that this is a bad thing for their baby. Studies in America have shown that 25% to 50% of people don’t know why shaking a baby is bad. These people have also admitted that they have shaken their babies without knowing that this is harmful to their baby.

Americans have created various programs that tell new parents that shaking the baby is harmful and these educational programs have decreased the baby traumas by 47%. This shows that a simple educational message can mean a lot.

Researches have also shown that no one can know for sure which couple has a tendency of shaking their baby and causing a head trauma. The only thing that can be predicted is that couples where the man or the woman have experienced violence and have an abusive history are more at risk. Also, it has been proven that hearing the baby crying can trigger abusive behavior with the parents. The reasons for this can be different like: parents being tired and when hearing the baby crying they become more stressed; parents thinking that the crying of their baby shows that there is something wrong with the baby or they are bad parents and are not doing something right and this leads to strong emotional feelings and desperation; some will even think that the baby is crying intentionally just to manipulate them.

The NSPCC has released a new movie “Coping with Crying” which is full with messages about parenting and advices about shaking the baby and calming their crying in the best way.  In the last 2 years, 30 000 new parents have seen this movie in the hospitals.

For people that are not able to see the movie, there are some things that they should know like:

–          Shaking the baby can cause harm to your baby because they are fragile.

–          Crying is a normal thing and some babies will cry a lot. This does not mean that something is wrong. They can even cry for no reason.

–          Soothing the baby can be different. As time goes by, you will learn all the reasons why a baby usually cries and what are the ways to calm a small baby down.

–          If you need help with soothing your baby when it’s crying, there’s no shame in it.