ABSTRACT
Pediatric forensic pathology, a subspecialty of forensic pathology, is concerned with investigating the sudden, unexpected, and/or violent deaths of fetuses, neonates, infants, toddlers, children, and, in most jurisdictions, adolescents up to and including the age of 18 years. Evaluating potential forensic issues across such a spectrum of age requires a commanding knowledge of normal growth and maturation, as well as a thoughtful consideration of the unique anatomy and physiology that characterizes each stage of development. Unfortunately, very few forensic pathologists are specifically trained in pediatric pathology, and the number of hospital-based pediatric pathologists who engage in medicolegal death investigation is equally small, especially in the United States. The consequences of incompetent pediatric medicolegal death investigation can be devastating for multiple members of a community. It is, for example, as important to correctly identify and process a child homicide as it is to exonerate an innocent caretaker who is wrongfully suspected of child harm. Forensic investigations in the pediatric population are thankfully infrequent, but when they arise, they can present intellectually challenging, and at times emotionally taxing, scenarios.
