[Blunt abdominal trauma caused by child abuse].

We report about 3 boys under 4 years of age with abdominal blunt trauma following child abuse admitted to our clinic with different diagnoses. Common were fresh or older haematomas, burn wounds, for which the parents had no plausible explanation. The children had no skeletal or intracranial lesions, but they developed abdominal pain, which became worse in the absence of the parents. X-ray and the clinical course lead us to laparatomy. In all cases we found lesions of the intestines, especially near the duodenojejunal flexure, hepatoduodenal ligament, root of the mesentery, mesocolon and retroperitoneum, in one case a pancrease rupture. All these lesions were caused by child abuse. We want to point out the problem in the diagnosis of battered child syndrome, especially of the abdominal blunt trauma.