What type of head injuries occur with child maltreatment?
A wide variety of head injuries can occur with child maltreatment, including intracranial bleeding, cerebral contusions and other brain tissue injuries, skull fractures, subgaleal hematomas, retinal hemorrhages, and scalp hematomas, lacerations or bruises. However, certain injuries occur more commonly with inflicted injuries, while others occur more commonly in non-inflicted (“accidental”) scenarios. Fortunately, simple infant and toddler falls generally have benign consequences. Falls from beds, couches, and down stairs rarely cause injury, and when a head injury is sustained it is likely to be a scalp bruise or a single linear skull fracture.6-9 Symptomatic intracranial hemorrhages are almost never seen in simple low-level falls, although epidural hematomas can occur.10,11 Subdural hemorrhage (SDH) in infants and toddlers has been closelylinked with child abuse. SDH occurs when the bridging veins that run between the surface of the brain and the dura are torn, causing bleeding into t
