Abuse prevention advocates discuss looking for signs of child abuse

Knowing how and when to spot child abuse is something that abuse prevention advocates continue to spread awareness about, especially in South Mississippi.

This is not the first story of the year to come out of Harrison County that involves an infant fatality. Just in April, we covered another case of felony child abuse.

Some of the feedback that we always get when stories like this come up is ‘how did no one know?’ or ‘how do they determine abuse?’

News 25’s Brooke Parker set down with two people from Canopy Children Services to answer these questions.

Nearly half of child abuse deaths happen to infants one and under according to the Children’s Bureau. Maria Voigts, director of Canopy Children Solutions, is seeing it more and more. “It’s absolutely heartbreaking to have this happen. Our most vulnerable community of citizens need help and protection from the parents and the community.”

Daniel Dooley interviews children four and up. With no voice, infant abuse isn’t noticed until it is too late. “I think a majority of the time you can’t tell. That’s why we refer our kids to forensic medical exams and a lot of times those medical exams for physical abuse or medical abuse come back normal, so a lot of the times there are not outwardly signs of physical abuse.”

So, how did the medical team at Merit determine the child could have been abused? “Most doctors who are doing these types of exams are taking x-rays, and what they’re looking for during those x-rays are things you can’t see on the body. They’re looking for breaks, they’re looking for rib fractures, and they’re looking to see if they can date those fractures.”

Voigts says if we can’t see the abuse when it is happening, then we need to be more vigilant in preventing it. This starts with the parents.  “We need education to help stop some of these incidents from happening because it’s happening far too frequently.”

An autopsy will determine whether the child died as a result of abuse.