Hospitals identifying infant abuse early

Ohio’s six children’s hospitals are making strides in identifying minor injuries to infants caused by abuse, allowing intervention before further abuse accelerates to serious injuries — or death.

The hospitals, including Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, now are detecting an average of 90 so-called “sentinel injuries” a month in infants under 6 months of age, an increase of 50 percent from 2015.

A $1 million grant from the office of Attorney General Mike DeWine provided funding for the Timely Recognition of Abusive Injuries (TRAIN) Collaborative to conduct training designed to prevent repeated child abuse.

Child abuse is not believed to be more prevalent, but the numbers indicate that physicians are using more diagnostic tools and a “bundle of care” to identify injuries as caused by abuse rather than accidents, said Dr. Jonathan Thackeray, chief medical community health officer at Dayton Children’s Hospital.

“Sentinel injuries” frequently involve bruises, fractures, head or abdominal injuries, burns and oral or genital injuries. The “bundle of care” includes a skeletal assessment of infants, psychological assessments of caregivers and consultation with pediatricians with expertise in child-abuse detection.

Identifying abuse before it worsens allows experts to work with children’s services officials and others to provide families with assistance that might help ease factors, such as poverty and substance abuse, contributing to early, minor abuse, Thackeray said at a news conference Monday at Nationwide Children’s Hospital.

After also being offered to 19 community hospitals, the training now is being expanded to nine large pediatric practices across Ohio serving more than 30,000 families, with hopes of attracting more with the assistance of the Ohio chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

“We have some of the best minds in pediatric health care in the country right here in Ohio,” DeWine said. “I am proud that we could bring these minds together to identify a proven process to help children are too young to understand their injuries or even to speak for themselves.

“It’s a moral imperative we protect kids,” DeWine said.

More than 30,000 children are abused in Ohio each year, state officials say.

DeWine, the Republican candidate for governor, is opposing Democrat Richard Cordray in the Nov. 6 election.