SHAKEN BABY SYNDROME
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Abusive head trauma (AHT) and shaken baby syndrome usually refer to the same thing. When a parent or other caregiver shakes and injures a child, it's sometimes called shaken baby syndrome.

Shaking a baby is the most common form of AHT. It occurs most frequently in babies younger than 1 – typically when an adult is overwhelmed by a crying baby and tries to get him to stop. It can happen when an adult is frustrated with a toddler or preschooler, too.

AHT is also the term doctors use to describe a serious brain injury that results from blunt force. Receiving a blow to the head and being thrown or dropped cause similar injuries to violently shaking a child, so doctors refer to all such injuries as AHT.

When a child's head is shaken back and forth, his brain bumps against the skull, causing bruising, swelling, pressure, and bleeding in and around the brain. The impact often causes bleeding in the retina – the light-sensitive portion of the eye that transmits images to the brain.

A child with AHT may also have a damaged spinal cord or neck as well as bone fractures. The extent of the damage depends on how long and hard the child is shaken or how severe the blow to the head is. But in just seconds, a child can suffer severe, permanent damage or even death.