How much do levels of non-abusive bruising rise once a child is mobile?
When a child is walking with support, 9.2% have some bruising with no child having more than 5 bruises. When a child under two years old is walking independently more than half of the children have bruises with no child having more than 11 bruises. What other factors should be taken into account? Non-abusive bruising tends to increase in summer for all ages, and non-abusive bruising may increase with increasing family size. Do children who are not independently mobile have non-abusive bruises at all? Yes, but this is very rare. Bruising in infants less than 6 months is very uncommon; in very young infants it can be due to birth trauma. Bruising in pre-cruisers (young children not independently mobile) is also rare: only 2.9% having bruising and no child having more than three bruises. Are there parts of the body that rarely bruise non-abusively at any age? Yes. It is extremely rare to see bruises on the hands of children less than two years old, the buttocks of children less than nine
