The three-minute animated film Shaking Your Baby Is Just Not The Deal is the result of the Shaken Baby Project, a joint effort involving The Children's Hospital at Westmead, Sydney West Area Health Service, Kids West and Westmead Medical Research Foundation.

The Shaken Baby Project aims to reduce non-accidental brain injury caused by shaking a baby.

It has received international acclaim, and this led to the decision to reproduce it in languages including Cantonese, Hindi, Dari, Dinka, Vietnamese, Farsi, Arabic, Turkish and Sudanese.

Martine Simons, who is a senior social worker in brain injury rehabilitation at the hospital, joined the project in 2003.

She said it was difficult to tease out the number of children who had been shaken among those treated for an inflicted head injury in the 18-day to 30-month age group.

But figures from a study from 2000 to 2003 identified 29 cases treated at the hospital, but only in five of those did the perpetrators admit to shaking the infant.

The film will be shown to new and prospective parents, carers of infants and their extended families.

``Babies cry when they are wet or when they're hungry or need a cuddle or some attention, and can cry for two to three hours a day,'' Ms Simons said.

She said research had shown there were low levels of knowledge about the effect of shaking a baby and that babies do cry.