Thread: Shaken babies, damaged lives

Shaken babies, damaged lives

Violence leaves long-term impairments that redefine the lives of Rogue Valley children and those of their parents

By Sarah Lemon
Mail Tribune
September 09, 2007

The violent shaking she suffered seven weeks after birth didn't steal 1-year-old Maria Machuca's ability to walk, babble or hold up her arms for a hug.

A stranger would never know that Maria's infant head whipped back and forth hard enough to burst blood vessels covering her brain. But because of the injury and its resulting seizure disorder, Maria spends moments of her life glassy-eyed and stiff-limbed while the world continues its dance around her.

"She'll literally freeze for 10 or 15 seconds and not be there," said her mother, 27-year-old Christina Sanchez, of Medford.

The "staring seizures" are the product of blood irritating Maria's brain tissue. But Maria somehow escaped torn retinas and the broken bones so many shaken babies suffer.

"She's doing astonishingly well," said Dr. Michael Narus, a pediatric neurologist in Medford. "She's been very fortunate."

Although she didn't sit up until she was 9 or 10 months old and didn't ever crawl, Maria walks, sometimes too clumsily, Sanchez said. Subtle evidence of Maria's injury, Narus said, can still be seen in the left side of her body, which has a stiffness reminiscent of robots. When Maria first went to Asante Health System's pediatric assessment clinic a few months after being shaken, her left side was severely impaired, Sanchez said, her shoulder so tight that therapists could hardly move it.

The injuries pointed child welfare workers and police to Maria's father, 23-year-old Gerardo Javier Machuca.

"He was the only one with her that day," Sanchez said.

Shortly after Sanchez arrived home on June 22 last year from her job as a patient registrar in Rogue Valley Medical Center's emergency room, Maria started jerking her arms and legs. Her eyes rolled back in her head. Sanchez recognized the signs of a seizure.

Maria spent a week and a half in RVMC's intensive-care unit, a week during which Sanchez faced losing her daughter and the man she had planned to marry.

"I kept on wanting to think it was an accident," Sanchez said. "He was never a violent person."

Machuca was arrested and charged with assaulting his daughter. He pleaded guilty on Sept. 8, 2006, in Jackson County Circuit Court to a reduced charge because, prosecutor David Hoppe said, Maria was not permanently injured. But it was too soon to know how 4-month-old Maria would be affected, Sanchez said.

"We didn't know she was going to have a seizure disorder at the time," she said.

In the country illegally, Machuca was sentenced to probation and deported back to Mexico. He's since had a single phone conversation with Sanchez.

"He still says to this day ... that he didn't do anything."

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A homeowner, Sanchez felt like she was on her way to having the "perfect family" before Maria was shaken. She didn't return to work for two months after Maria was released from RVMC. Unable to afford mortgage payments on her Grape Street home, Sanchez sold and moved in with her parents.

"I didn't trust anybody enough to watch her," she said.

Once Sanchez did go back on the job, Maria's frequent illnesses, some likely side effects from her anti-seizure medication, kept Sanchez from work at least one day per week until just about a month ago. Maria's seizures have now decreased from two per day to one per week or fewer. Narus said he won't start to taper her off medication until she lives two years without a seizure.

If Maria's seizures aren't stabilized, her brain could develop as if seizures are part of its normal function, Sanchez said. At its least severe, the disorder could lead to learning disabilities in a school-age Maria as she misses moments of classroom instruction.

"She could have a speech problem," Sanchez said. "She could have a learning problem."

Sanchez's eyes filled with tears when she imagined how Maria might ask her one day why she's different.

"I don't want this to follow her all of her life," Sanchez said.

But at the same time, Sanchez said she feels blessed that, unlike so many others who were shaken, Maria "looks like a normal, little baby."

"I pray for those other babies all the time."

Reach reporter Sarah Lemon at 776-4487, or e-mail slemon@mailtribune.com.

http://www.mailtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dl ... /709090329

This kinda stuff makes me sick.