University of British Columbia Mar 5 2026 About one in 20 infants worldwide is subjected to physical abuse by a caregiver in their first two years of life. That's the central finding of a new study co-led by researchers from the UBC faculty of medicine and Memorial University of Newfoundland (MUN), the first to bring together anonymous reports from caregivers about behaviors like spanking, slapping, shaking and hitting. About four to five per cent of parents are behaving in physically