Non-Accidental Trauma Suspicion

“Non-accidental trauma” is a broad, older label for injury that may have been inflicted or caused by maltreatment. In Canadian practice, use precise injury language whenever possible. For suspected inflicted head injury, the recommended term is traumatic head injury due to child maltreatment (THI-CM). Terms such as shaken baby syndrome, abusive head trauma, non-accidental head injury, and inflicted traumatic brain injury may appear in older or international resources but are not preferred Canadian terminology. Suspicion is not a diagnosis and does not require proof. It is a safety finding that requires the nurse to stabilise the child, assess for hidden injury, preserve an accurate account of the findings, and report when the legal threshold is met. A nurse with reasonable grounds to suspect that a child may need protection has a personal duty to report promptly and directly to the appropriate provincial or territorial child-welfare authority. Consultation with a physician, manager, or child-protection specialist supports care; it does not transfer the nurse’s reporting responsibility.