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UNC, Duke Lead First Statewide Shaken Baby Prevention Research Project in US |
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From EurekAlert! - Breaking News: Child abuse prevention experts from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Injury Prevention Research Center and School of Medicine and Duke University Medical Center will undertake a $7 million statewide shaken baby prevention project. The project, the largest and most comprehensive in the country, is funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and The Duke Endowment and is led by a broad coalition of stakeholders from the National Center for Shaken Baby Syndrome, University of British Columbia and state and county agencies, service providers and non-profit organizations. It is designed to reach the parents of every baby born each year in North Carolina with the goal of significantly reducing the number of deaths and serious injuries that occur when frustrated caregivers shake crying babies. Of those, 10 die and the other 27 suffer serious long-term health problems such as mental retardation, blindness, or cerebral palsy as a result," Runyan said. "As a pediatrician and a long-standing member of the N.C. Child Fatality Task Force, I know how devastating shaking a baby can be -- to the infant and to the family. North Carolina's project plans to provide every parent of the approximately 125,000 babies born in the state annually with an intervention program called "The Period of PURPLE Crying," which was developed by Dr. Ron Barr, a professor of community child health research and a developmental pediatrician at the University of British Columbia, and Marilyn Barr, founder and executive director of the National Center on Shaken Baby Syndrome. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention provided a five-year, $2.9 million grant and the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation provided a $2 million grant, both to the UNC Injury Prevention Research Center.
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