It has been asserted that hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy (HIE) with cerebral swelling in the absence of marked trauma may be responsible for subural hemorrhage in the young. As this may have considerable implications in determining both the mechanism of death and the degree of force required to cause injury in certain cases of inflicted head injury in infancy, clarification is required. A retrospective study of 82 fetuses, infants and toddlers with proven HIE and no trauma was undertaken from forensic institutes in Australia, the United Kingdom, Germany, Denmark and the United States. The age range was 35 weeks gestation to 3 years, with a male to female ratio of 2:1. All cases had histologically-confirmed HIE. Causes of the hypoxic episodes were temporarily resuscitated sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) with delayed death (N = 30), drowning (N = 12), accidental asphyxia (N = 10), intrauterine/delivery asphyxia (N = 8), congenital disease (N = 6), aspiration of food/gastric contents (N = 4), inflicted asphyxia (N = 3), epilepsy (N = 1), dehydration (N = 1), drug toxicity (N = 1), complications of prematurity (N = 1), and complications of anesthesia (N = 1). In four instances the initiating event was not determined. In no case was there macroscopic evidence of subdural hemorrhage. In this study no support could be given to the hypothesis that HIE in the young in the absence of trauma causes subdural hemorrhage.

Keywords: subdural hemorrhage, shaken infant syndrome, hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy, non-accidental head injury