A baby girl sustained serious head injuries and died two days after a "shaking" incident during which a woman relative shook the five-month-old infant in an effort to get her breathing, an inquest was told yesterday.
Bolu Adjibade died at Temple Street Hospital for Sick Children on February 29th, 2004, two days after she experienced a brain haemorrhage when a grandaunt shook the infant while trying to resuscitate her, Dublin City Coroner's Court heard.
Jumoke Otubanjo, who was minding Bolu at her home in Blanchardstown on February 27th while her parents were at work, told an inquest she noticed the baby gasping in the car seat in which she was sitting at about 3pm and immediately picked her up and cradled her.
"I noticed she wasn't breathing . . . I held her out from my body with my hands under her armpits and I shook her. Her head was loose and it went back and forward with my shaking," said Ms Otubanjo, who told the inquest she shook the baby to try and resuscitate her. "I shook her and called her name . . . I didn't know shaking could kill a baby. I never heard of this before," she said.
State Pathologist Prof Marie Cassidy told the court Bolu died of a subdural haemorrhage or a haemorrhage in the membranes around the brain due to head trauma as a result of shaken-baby syndrome, a recognised phenomenon where a child is shaken repeatedly and the head goes backwards and forwards causing damage to the brain stem.
She told the court that the child appeared well cared for and well nourished and there was no evidence of congenital abnormalities or of any force applied to the baby's head.
"A child can't support its head, so it moved backwards and forwards. It doesn't have to be vigorous or violent shaking."
A jury of four men and two women unanimously agreed that a near cot death - also called near sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) - could have been the reason why the baby stopped breathing at her grandaunt's home, in accordance with the evidence heard in court, and returned a verdict of death by misadventure.
Earlier, the coroner had advised them that they should return an open verdict if they believed there was no evidence of an SIDS event.
"We're a little bit speculating about the SIDS event, but based on the evidence it's not unreasonable that the baby may have experienced a SIDS event and in the efforts to resuscitate her she sustained head trauma and shaken baby syndrome trauma," said the coroner. "The resuscitation was a significant factor in the death."
Prof Cassidy said there was no medical evidence to suggest that the baby had experienced a SIDS episode, but there was equally nothing to suggest she had not experienced one either.
She told the court the baby had some iron in her lungs, which might indicate there had been a previous near cot death episode.
The court heard that on the morning of February 27th, 2007, Bolu's father and mother, Stephen and Nike Adjibade, Sundale Crescent, Tallaght, dropped their daughter off at the home of Nike's aunt in Blanchardstown and that the baby girl was in good form, apart from a cold.
At 3pm, Ms Otubanjo noticed the baby, who was asleep in a car seat, was gasping.
She picked the baby up and shook her in an effort to help her breath again, but when her efforts were unsuccessful she contacted Mr Adjibade at work and the emergency services.
When the baby's mother rushed back to her aunt's house, she found her baby daughter lying lifeless on the couch.