Diagnosing Asphyxia

[keithbobo]

If someone has been suffocated what signs are there post mortem that this had happened?

Was watching a program where a baby had been smothered but they wrongly blamed it cot death when the mother was actually responsible. Surely they would be able to scientifically prove this?

[furrypusscat]

http://www.childdeathreview.org/causessuf.htm

There is a lot of stuff online, this is just one site.

[furrypusscat]

Cot death is often diagnosed when there is no definitive answer as to why a baby has died. It is very sad.

[Sqad]

Big big question and i am not an expert.
Classical signs of asphyxia.......fracture of the hyoid bone (strangulation) and petechial hemorrhages in the eyes.

Your baby:

Infanticide...there may well be a fractured hyoid but almost certainly hemorrhages in the eyes.

SID (cot death)...as above, except no fracture of the hyoid bone but widespread hemorrhages in the eyes and throughout the rest of the body.

All organs water logged...indicating a slow death.

I agree re. your question above......it should be straight forward to differentiate.

My knowledge of pathology is basic.

[stuey]

Sqad, slightly off topic; did you ever read "Bernard Spilsbury: His Life and Cases"? Excellent reading.

[stuey]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Spilsbury

[Sqad]

stuey..........yes i did..........the father of Forensic Medicine.

Try and get a copy of Buck Ruxton, the parsee doctor who killed his wife.

[Sqad]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buck_Ruxton

[stuey]

Thanks, I'll look into it. Keithbobo, if you are interested in forensic medicine, read the link I posted...You might enjoy the book that I mentioned.

[Peter Pedant]

Babies are a different species....

hyoid is very flexible in the young - and I would be amazed to see one ( in bits ).

Spilsbury - who lectured my mother at the Royal Free in the thirties - is a bit before cot death. Diktat of the Home Office now is that only a neonatal pathologist can "do" post mortems in the very young.

Oddly enough the person I bought my first edn Gray's Anatomy from,
was the first to describe the eye signs in these unfortunate children.

Gilkes MJ, Mann TP. The fundi of battered babies. Lancet 1967;II:468.

There is an awful lot about this on the internet

[Sqad]

PP.....Two parts to the question, first part a general question, second part specifically to babies.

I agree that fractured hyoid is unusual in babies, but my answer was to the first part............asphyxia die to strangulation in adults.

[stuey]

Peter, I don't think that Spilsbury was "a little before cot death"; however, he was certainly a lot before it acquired an acronym: SID.