Doctors may miss child abuse over ‘outdated ideas’

Child abuse could go undetected by doctors because they may have outdated ideas about how many bruises are normal in physically active children.

Consultant paediatrician Dr Emma Curtis told a seminar it was considered normal 20 years ago for the average young child to have 12 bruises at any given time from the rough and tumble of play and minor falls.

But she said while that figure and the research it came from was still referred to in medical circles, she regarded two to three bruises as more realistic today.