“Apple has removed the Baby Shaker application from the App Store, just hours after it was discovered,” Tom Krazit reports for CNET.
“Baby Shaker, a game in which the user is invited to silence a baby’s cries by violently shaking an iPhone, appeared on the App Store Monday despite Apple’s policy of banning ‘offensive’ iPhone applications,” Krazit reports.
“Company representatives have still not responded to inquires about how Baby Shaker made it into the App Store in the first place,” Krazit reports.
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Despite the developer’s (Sikalosoft) inclusion of the admonition, “Never, never shake a baby” in the App Store’s application description, this is obviously one application that should have never been approved in the first place. It’s despicable at worst; ill-conceived at best. So, good that it’s gone so quickly; bad that it got in there at all; and, if anyone takes anything at all away from this brief episode, let it be: Never ever shake a baby, no matter what!
To atone for their ineptitude, Apple Inc. should make a donation to The National Center on Shaken Baby Syndrome.
Shaken Baby Syndrome (SBS) is the diagnosis given to the many serious, and sometimes fatal, injuries and permanent disabilities that can occur when an infant or young child is violently shaken. Not only is it a serious type of head injury, it is a serious form of child abuse.
The baby’s brain is very fragile. Babies’ neck muscles are not strong, therefore when a baby is shaken, his head flops back and forth, causing the brain to slam against the inside of the skull. This causes the blood vessels to tear and blood to collect inside the baby’s skull, causing irreparable damage to the brain.
Shaken Baby Syndrome occurs most frequently in infants younger than six months old, but children at old as three can receive severe injuries from shaking.
In America last year, over 1,200 children were treated for SBS. Of these tiny victims, 20% died as a result of their injuries. The rest may have lifelong complications.
Shaking a baby causes severe injury to the baby’s fragile brain. In fact:
• 20% of shaken babies die
• 80% of shaken babies may have serious injuries and long-term disabilities including:
– Brain damage
– Blindness
– Deafness or hearing loss
– Spinal injury / paralysis
– Cerebral palsy
– Seizures
– Severe motor dysfunction
– Mental retardation
– Speech or learning disabilities
Child abuse is preventable. Share this message with anyone who may care for a baby: No matter how much he or she cries, now matter how frustrated you get, never, ever shake a baby!
More info:
• www.dontshakeababy.com
• www.dontshake.org
• www.thebrainproject.org
