ABSTRACT

There has been no study on how to soothe babies crying severely in our country. The aim of this study is to detect how their family respond to the baby’s crying behavior and measure the knowledge about shaken baby.

This study included a total of 521 parents (281 mothers, 240 fathers). We asked families about how they soothe, do families get angry or not, whether shaking the baby is harmful or not, and ‘’shaking baby‘’ causes. Re-sults: 49.3% of parents said ‘’babies do not cry if there is no problem’’; these parents include 60.7% of mothers and 39.3% of fathers (p=0.003). In answer to“Is shaking the baby harmful or not ?” 50.3% of parents said they have no idea. When ‘’What kind of problems does shaking the baby cause?” was asked to parents, 45% of parents said “the baby will not die but maybe will be disabled” and 24% of parents said “shaking the baby causes no problem”. 61.5% of the mothers and 38.5% of the fathers said that if the baby is crying they will get angry and feel them helpless (p=0.001). 2.3% of parents said they sometimes shake their baby.

In this study we found that the families have limited information about what‘’shaking the baby’’ can cause. In this study, families education levels are better than Turkey’s average. So, the families in our country must be educated and learn how to comfort a baby when the baby is crying. We also have to give them information about consequences of “baby shaking’’. (Gazi Med J 2012; 23: 39-45)