Study: 1 in 50 U.S. babies neglected, abused

ATLANTA — About one in 50 infants in the United States has been neglected or abused, according to the first national study of the problem in that age group.

Nearly one-third of the victims were 1 week old or younger when the maltreatment was reported, government researchers said Thursday. The study focused on children younger than 1.

Most cases involved neglect, not physical abuse. In the case of the newborns, experts said the data suggest drug abuse by the mother may have been the cause for reports of neglect, but they couldn't be certain.

Maternal drug abuse is often discovered through blood tests while newborns are still in the hospital, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) researchers and others said.

"That is the story here," said Dr. Howard Dubowitz, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Maryland School of Medicine.

The researchers counted more than 91,000 infant victims of abuse and neglect during the study period Oct. 1, 2005, to Sept. 30, 2006. About 30,000 of those were newborns 1 week old or younger.

The information came from a national database of cases verified by protective-services agencies in 45 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico.

Other studies have looked at national child-abuse and -neglect cases, but this is believed to be the first to focus on infants, said study co-author Rebecca Leeb, a CDC epidemiologist.

"We certainly were distressed" by the study's results, said Ileana Arias, director of the CDC's National Center for Injury Prevention and Control. "It's a picture you don't want to imagine."

Only about 13 percent of the newborn cases were counted as physical abuse, meaning the large majority involved neglect. Federal officials define neglect as a failure to meet a child's basic needs, including housing, clothing, feeding and access to medical care.

The cases did not include new parents stumbling their way through rookie mistakes. "Things like abandonment and newborn drug addiction would qualify as neglect, not things like parents learning how to be parents," Leeb said.

Medical professionals identified about 65 percent of the maltreated newborns to protective-services staffs. The others came from law enforcement, relatives, friends and protective-services staff members.

The neglect cases include situations in which medical professionals concluded that a child got sick or didn't correctly develop because parents didn't get recommended medical care. Those cases were not necessarily life-threatening, said David Finkelhor, who directs the Crimes against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire.

The study didn't include data on fatal abuse and neglect. But federal officials said about 500 infants younger than 1 died of abuse or neglect during the study period.

The CDC collaborated on the study with the federal Administration for Children and Families. The research was published in the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.