What can a baby's skull withstand? Testing the skull's resistance on an anatomical preparation

A fall scenario is often given to explain the reason for a head injury to an infant. Mostly the examining doctor or forensic expert has to rely on his own experience and to appraise the situation to be consistent or not with his finds. An experiment carried out on an anatomical preparation showed that the skull of a newborn baby was able to repeatedly resist forces of up to 1000 N before breaking in. Even then the fracture lines followed the bony spikes (spiculae) from the ossification centers of the skull bones. If fractures are running across these spiculae there is reason to believe that high local force has been used, and a blow against a sharp edge must be considered. (c) 2005 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.