Abuse and neglect of children under age 1 are more of a problem in the United States than previously estimated. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a report Thursday that around 1 in 43 U.S. infants are abused or neglected, those most at risk being newborns.

"We certainly were distressed," says Ileana Arias, PhD, director of the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control at the CDC. "What the data suggest is that maltreatment is taking place earlier than we had been focusing on."

The study, which appears in the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, says that 91,000 infants were neglected or subjected to attacks such as shaking or beating, and about a third were in their first week of life when that happened. The research analyzed data from October 2005 to September 2006.

Overall, there were about 905,000 children up to age 18 who were mistreated through abuse or negligence. About 500 infants died from abuse or neglect.

In most cases, infants are neglected rather than physically abused. "Neglect is officially defined as the failure the meet a child's basic needs," Arias said to The Washington Post. "That can be anything involving the provision of appropriate housing or food or clothing or even access to medical care," she said.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that one solution to solve this tragic situation is to provide more counseling to pregnant women or those still in the hospital post-partum.