Nasal bleeding and non-accidental injury in an infant
- 1Queen’s Medical Centre, Nottingham, UK
- 2Emergency Department, Leicester Royal Infirmary, Leicester, UK
- Correspondence to Dr Ffion Davies, Emergency Department, Leicester Royal Infirmary, Leicester LE1 5WW, UK; Ffion.davies{at}uhl-tr.nhs.uk
- Accepted 4 August 2009
Abstract
Bleeding from the nose has been a point of controversy in the field of child protection in the UK in recent years. Epistaxis in childhood is common but is unusual in the first year of life. Oronasal blood in infancy has been proposed as a marker of child abuse in this age group, but despite this widely held belief, there is a lack of published evidence in this area. The case is reported of an infant who presented at one month of age with serious inflicted injuries, who had been seen in the emergency department only 13 days previously with a “spontaneous” self-limiting nose bleed.
Footnotes
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Funding None
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Competing interests None.
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Patient consent Obtained.
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Provenance and Peer review Not commissioned; not externally peer reviewed.
