Prison Term Underscores Tragedy of Shaken Babies

One-year-old Michael Powers should be alert and happy and beginning to babble and crawl. He is not.

When he was 2 months old, he was shaken violently by his father. Now Michael--known as Mikey to his family--is blind, quadriplegic, severely brain-damaged and prone to uncontrollable seizures.

On Thursday, he was brought to court so a judge could assess his condition before sentencing James Powers for his guilty plea to child abuse charges.

After seeing the child, Municipal Court Judge John Davidson rejected a Probation Department recommendation that Powers, 26, a Navy petty officer, be given probation.

Davidson sentenced Powers to the maximum seven years in prison, a message to others who might be tempted to shake their babies to stop their crying or fussing.

“I think others need to know this tragedy should not be repeated,” Davidson said.

The tough sentence reflects a growing concern among doctors, prosecutors, social service agencies and others about “shaken baby syndrome,” which may be responsible for 10% of the 2,000 child-abuse deaths in the United States annually.

In Los Angeles County, the Inter-Agency Council on Child Abuse and Neglect reports that 40% of child-abuse deaths are a result of head injuries caused by shaken-baby syndrome, blunt-force trauma or both.

In one of the latest cases being investigated, police suspect that the death of a 2-month-old boy last weekend in Van Nuys was the result of the child being shaken at the family home. There have been no arrests in what is now being termed a homicide investigation.

Although child abuse has been a public concern for years, it was not until last month in Utah that the first national conference on shaken-baby syndrome was held. Health agencies in California and other states are working to add shaken-baby syndrome to the official causes of death so that the magnitude of the problem can be determined.

The American Society of Pediatricians has issued a bulletin asking doctors to watch for signs that babies have suffered head injuries from being shaken. And public education campaigns involving sports stars and entertainers are stressing a simple message: Never shake a baby.

Unlike classic baby-beaters, who are taking out their rage on a defenseless child, adults who shake babies are often caring parents who lose control for a minute or two, with tragic results. Many of the offending parents are young and at their wits’ end. Mikey’s father had no criminal record or history of child abuse.

“We believe that in many cases, the person is not trying to hurt the baby, but just does something very, very stupid,” said Dr. Roger Trent, chief of injury surveillance and epidemiology for the state Department of Health Services.

Surveys show an appalling ignorance among parents about the dangers of shaking babies. A study by the Ohio Research Institute on Child Abuse indicates that 25% to 50% of teenagers, young adults and caregivers do not understand that shaking a baby can cause brain damage, seizures, paralysis, blindness and death.

“We’re in the Dark Ages when it comes to shaken-baby syndrome,” said Garry Haehnle, deputy district attorney in San Diego County.

Typically, the victim is a boy, under 3 years old, and the adult is the baby’s father. One study suggested that in two-thirds of cases the baby had suffered no previous injuries, suggesting that there had been no prior abuse.

A year ago, Gayle Wilson, wife of Gov. Pete Wilson, kicked off a statewide education campaign. A similar campaign was undertaken in San Diego County, involving Chargers’ linebacker Junior Seau.

Brochures were distributed in maternity wards, social service agencies and doctors’ offices. Warnings were inserted with welfare checks. Some 800 videos were distributed to high-school parenting classes and other venues.

The Navy and Marine Corps distributed the video worldwide for their troops. Many of them, experts say, are young marrieds, away from the support system of family and friends, and emotionally ill-equipped for the demands of parenthood. State officials in eight other states asked for copies of the video.

While it is too soon to determine with certainty if the campaign has been successful, officials note that in the first six months of 1995, six babies died in San Diego County after being shaken. During the same period in 1996, during the anti-shaking campaign and media blitz, no such deaths occurred.

Still, doctors are concerned that even children who do not die, or even lose consciousness, may be severely damaged.

“We’re worried that there may be cases of repeated shakings over a period of years where the damage is subtle, such as learning difficulties,” said Dr. David Chadwick, director of the child protection center at San Diego’s Children’s Hospital.

At the Utah conference, Chadwick presented a study of 73 shaken-baby syndrome cases in San Diego County over a 17-year period: 31 that resulted in death, 42 in which the child survived but had brain damage.

“What’s important to remember is that this is abuse,” Chadwick said. “Bouncing a child on your knee . . . is not going to cause these kinds of violent injuries.”

Shaken-baby syndrome can be hard to detect. The child may have no bruises. The injury may be confused with those from a fall or a car whiplash.

In both the Michael Powers case and that of Etzel Dean Glass III of Van Nuys, the incidents were not at first diagnosed as involving shaking.

An emergency room physician initially believed Mikey’s parents’ story that his injuries were the result of an accident. Only on a follow-up visit did a Navy doctor spot what she believed were signs of shaken-baby syndrome.

Michael’s mother, Sherri, cried during Thursday’s sentencing hearing. She faces no criminal charges; Michael and his 2-year-old brother were taken from the couple by authorities after the father’s arrest in March.

Etzel, who died Saturday at Mission Community Hospital in Van Nuys, was initially believed to have died from sudden infant death syndrome. But after an autopsy, police said the cause of death was trauma caused by forcible shaking.

“When parents lose their temper, the first reaction is often to shake the child out of frustration,” said Det. Steve Bernard, a child abuse investigator for the Los Angeles Police Department.

When a baby is shaken, the brain rocks back and forth in the skull, causing bleeding and scarring. The brain can swell and retinal bleeding is common.

More than adults, babies are susceptible to head injuries from being shaken because their skulls are heavy and large and their neck muscles are weak. A sudden whipping motion can snap the baby’s head backward and then forward so that the chin touches the chest.

Chris Dahlke, the foster mother who has cared for Michael Powers in recent months, said doctors have told her that the child will never be able to walk, talk or feed or care for himself.

“The message needs to get out,” Dahlke said. “Mikey is not the first baby and won’t be the last baby to suffer these kinds of injuries at the hands of people who should be loving and protecting them.”

Times staff writer Andrew Blankstein contributed to this story.