Child abuse in a military population

A retrospective review of all Child Advocacy Committee records at Naval Regional Medical Center, Portsmouth, Virginia, was carried out in an attempt to characterize abuse in a military population. We found little difference between our 273 cases of documented abuse and previous reports from civilian institutions as far as patient age, death rate, types of injuries, and social factors involved. We attributed our low incidence of fractures (11%) to our active Child Advocacy Committee. Spiral fractures in children less than 3 years old were the most common orthopedic injury and we concluded that a high index of suspicion should be maintained in young children with spiral fractures.