Unnatural deaths among children: Accidental deaths, suicide top the list
- Involve road accidents, falls, drownings, train accidents, burns, cut injuries, poisonings, sharp trauma, asphyxia, hanging
Unnatural deaths among children include accidental deaths involving road traffic accidents, falls, drownings, train accidents, burns, cut injuries, poisonings, sharp trauma, and asphyxia, and suicides involving hanging and drowning.
These findings were made in a research article on ‘Unnatural childhood deaths in two tertiary care hospitals in Sri Lanka: A retrospective study’ which was authored by M.S. Siddique, A.N. Vadysinghe, K.A.S. Kodikara and E.M.N.K. Ekanayake (all attached to the Peradeniya University’s Medical Faculty’s Forensic Medicine Department), and published in the Sri Lanka Journal of Forensic Medicine, Science and Law‘s 16th Volume’s Special Issue, last month (May).
The death of a child is a sentinel event in a community and a defining marker of a society’s policies of safety and health. An unnatural child death is a tragic outcome that can occur anywhere in the world. During the last century, child mortality has fallen to very low rates in developed countries. From a medical perspective, a natural death refers to a death that occurs solely due to a disease or natural processes. Unnatural deaths include homicide, suicide, and accidents. “All of these cases are potentially preventable because the death occurs due to an external process”. An understanding of the nature and patterns of childhood death and factors contributing to childhood deaths is essential to drive preventive initiatives (P. Sidebotham, J. Fraser, P. Fleming, M. Ward-Platt and R. Hain’s ‘Patterns of child death in England and Wales’).
To read the full story, click on the attached link from The Morning: https://www.themorning.lk/articles/fHwanjBXAGeXjI7Naquo
And the below is the link to the Original research document: https://sljfmsl.sljol.info/articles/10.4038/sljfmsl.v16i5.8017
