Submitted by Patty Puline, Safe Kids Erie Coordinator
More than 2,000 Children per Year Fatally Injured at Home
Safe Kids Erie Urges Parents to Childproof Homes
Approximately 2,096 children in the United States, ages 14 and under, die from accidental injuries in the home each year and 3 million kids are treated in emergency rooms for accidental injuries occurring at home. In 2004, approximately 2,300 children ages 14 and under died from unintentional injuries that occurred in the home and nearly 80 percent of these deaths were among children ages 4 and under. Most fatal injuries at home are caused by fire, suffocation, drowning, choking, falls, poisoning or firearms discharged unintentionally.
Safe Kids Erie urges parents and caregivers to check their homes for basic safety precautions. “There’s no substitute for active supervision, but childproofing your home provides extra protection and peace of mind,” says Patty Puline, Safe Kids Erie Coordiantor. “It’s easy to eliminate the most obvious hazards — and it doesn’t have to involve a lot of expensive equipment.”
The first step in childproofing a home is to explore every room at a child’s eye level. “Literally get down on your hands and knees and crawl around. You’ll be surprised at how much you can reach and how many small objects you can pick up,” says Puline. “Anything that can fit through a standard 1½-inch toilet paper tube is a potential choking hazard. Of course, cleaning products, medications, alcohol, firearms and other potentially harmful products need to be stored out of reach and locked up.”
Safe Kids Erie also recommends these precautions:
Fire Safety this summer.
Test your smoke alarms every month; make sure you have working smoke alarms on every level of your home, outside each sleeping area and in every bedroom. Also, check for fire hazards such as frayed electrical wires or flammable materials near heating appliances. Cooking outdoors has its own safety issues, such as charcoal lighter fluid, windy days, hot coals, wood fires and even cooking hot dogs, or making the famous S'mores over open pit or campground fires can be a safety hazard. Pay attention, and stay off the cell phone during these precious times with kids.
Always supervise children while they’re in the bathroom and follow other important safety guidelines.
Set your water heater at 120 degrees F and test the bathwater with your wrist or elbow before putting your child in it. Keep toilet lids closed and locked, and doors to bathrooms and utility rooms closed. When not in use, put razors, curling irons and hair dryers out of reach. Never leave young children alone in the bathtub – a child can drown in a matter of seconds. Never allow your child to touch the water faucet handles to increase or decrease the temperature in the tub, it is a hidden danger that can be repeated if you are not in the room.
Install a self-closing and self-latching gate around the home swimming pool.
Make sure the fence surrounds the entire pool and follow your own township or city codes and ordinances. Stay off the cell phones while the kid are in the pool, and download a Water Watcher card from Safe Kids Worldwide at www.safekids.org.
Look at every room as your child would.
Ask yourself what looks interesting and what can be reached. Get down on your hands and knees, and check for small things children can choke on such as jewelry, coins, small toy parts, buttons, pins, nails, batteries and stones. Be sure to keep all plastic bags out of reach and cover electrical outlets that are not in use. Keep areas free from access to electrical cords, extension cords, and remember that any wall plugs should be covered when not in use.
Always supervise young children while they’re eating.
To avoid choking, don’t allow children under age three to eat small, round or hard foods, including hot dogs, hard candy, nuts, grapes and popcorn. Banks will often try to give out round hard lollipops – this is a big no-no for small children, try to use the drive in lane.
Prevent serious falls.
Keep furniture away from windows, install guards or stops on windows that are not emergency exits, install safety gates at the top and the bottom of stairs, never use baby walkers and use protective surfaces beneath playground equipment. Window falls can be dangerous during summer months for those without air conditioning, keep small children OUT of those rooms, or seek alternate methods of cooling off. Also, tie up any window blinds with secure covers to avoid strangulation and suffocation.
Avoid exposing children to potential poisons.
Lock up potential poisons out of children’s reach, including cleaning supplies, pet food, medicine, vitamins, cosmetics, etc. Read labels and follow directions when giving medicine to children. Know which houseplants are poisonous and keep them where children can’t reach them. If you have a liquor cart, put away liquor bottles, if you have an area in the bathroom or bedroom for fragrance bottles, cosmetics and nail polish, keep out of reach at all times
Install carbon monoxide detectors in every sleeping area and test them every month.
This invisible, odorless gas can be fatal. Make sure heating systems are vented outside and checked every year.
Keep guns locked, unloaded and where kids can’t reach them.
Please lock up ammunition in a separate place.
Keep emergency numbers by every telephone.
Call 911 if a child is choking, collapses, can’t breathe or is having a seizure. If you suspect a child has been poisoned, call 1-800-222-1222.
Check your first aid kit to make sure it is fully stocked.
Make sure babysitters know where to find first aid supplies and how to handle an emergency.
For more information about kitchen safety, window blinds, cribs, windows, furniture and other hazards around the home, email Patty Puline, ppuline@ecdh.org , Coordinator for Safe Kids Erie.
“Remember, safety comes first, even if it means making your home a little less convenient for adults,” says Puline “Safety gates and cabinet locks are a small price to pay to keep a child out of the emergency room.”
Safe Kids Erieworks to prevent accidental childhood injury, the leading killer of children 14 and under. Safe Kids Erieis a member of Safe Kids Worldwide, a global network of organizations dedicated to preventing accidental injury. Safe Kids Erie was founded in 1991 and is proudly led by the Erie County Dept of Health.
