Notes from presentation ‘Procedures on Bruises in Pre-Mobile Children – why we need improved standards for policy making’ by Andy Bilson, Emeritus Professor of Social Work, University of Central Lancashire.
AB requests that all local authorities review their policies and don’t make automatic section 47 referrals. Looking at bruising to a 4 week old baby. 2, 2cm bruises. What can have caused them?
In this case, parent could offer no explanation. But these bruises were caused by baby suckling on his arm when hungry. Full child protection review, then baby was witnessed suckling his arm. This is not uncommon.
Automatic investigation of any bruise under section 47, AB says is ‘not technically legal’.
AB is going to
- review the evidence base on accidental bruising,
- review the procedures for pre-mobile children and
- consider the impact of procedures.
Impact on parent whose children was removed. Assumption that one bruise was good enough evidence to suggest child at risk of significant harm. ‘All I did was cry. I didn’t sleep’.
Evidence base in RCPCH review – Pierce 2016. Under 6 months, 1.3% had a bruise (18/1395) – children seen at hospital. only one occasion of observation. Problems with research. Rates of bruising massively different between the 3 hospitals.
Kemp 2015 – in Wales. Recruited people to report on weekly basis 1-12 weeks if their child had a bruise. Nurses visited to ensure accuracy.5.3% (7/133) had bruise. didn’t find any NA bruises.
This was as high as 10.9% if baby rolling, 1.3% if not rolling. Longitudinal data. Over 7-8 weeks, 27% of babies had a non accidental bruise. Therefore 1 in 4 babies had a bruise over a period.
Sugar 1999 – large study ‘children who don’t cruise, rarely bruise’. This has been disseminated widely. Pre-cruisers 2.2% (11/511). 0.6% ‘no upright ambulation’. Excluded abuse. African American children 3 times less likely to be bruised than white children.
Carpenter 1999 – less than 6 months 4% 4/101. looked at a small number of children but over many occasions. Relies on parents reporting from local community.
Challenge myths – accidental bruising in babies is NOT rare. Children can crawl from 4 months. ratio of accidental bruises to those leading to child protection plans is at least 1900 to 1. NO studies show bruising is ‘sentinel injury’.
if ‘sentinel injury’ would expect Welsh study to show a higher number of children going on to be serious harmed. We orient to see bruises in a particular way. Expectation that parents will notice bruises.
Causes in Welsh study – lying on dummy, children hit themselves in face with something. Toy dropped by sibling.
Review of procedures – concern is that the wrong kind of policies and procedures will make parents more wary about seeking help.
Since Dec 2010 AB has examined 147 Safeguarding Children Partnerships policies – 35 didn’t have ANY definition of ‘pre-mobile’. 12 treated rolling children as mobile, 25 did not! 74 included all children under 6 months. Big difference in Kemp study between rolling and not rolling.
impact of getting this wrong in both directions is a problem – must avoid over and under reaction.
Tendency to exaggerate – 20 LA procedures say any bruise is ‘highly predictive’ of child abuse. Almost all say that accidental bruises are ‘very rare’ – this is misunderstanding of statistics. 2% is not ‘rare’.
Many procedures say ‘a small percentage of bruising in children not independently mobile will have innocent explanation or medical cause’ – they are trying not to miss anything but AB doesn’t think this is the right thing to do.
18 LA ignore research and claim that infants do NOT bruise themselves by lying on dummy or banging themselves with rattles etc. and say that a self inflicted explanation should be rejected.
Moving straight to section 47 investigation is therefore unlawful, as no reasonable cause.
Almost all procedures require referral to CSC and a paediatrician. 27 LA required strategy meeting in all cases. That isn’t following national guidelines. 8 LA require immediate section 47 for bruises on any pre-mobile children.
Bedford Borough – following 3 Serious Case Reviews, automatic section 47 for any child under 6 months who has any kind of physical injury. e.g. bruise, thermal injury, clinical or radiological evidence of fracture.
Only challenge to section 47 is by judicial review and only one reported case – Judge commented on how significant a process this is