Protecting your child from common household hazards
Your home can be a reassuring refuge for your children, but everyday objects in the house can also endanger their safety.
“What we don’t really understand is that more than a third of children’s traumatic injuries and deaths occur in their own home,” said Marisa Abbe, Ph. D., CPSTI Manager of Injury Prevention Children’s Health℠. “Little kids are highest risk because they’re home from school most.”
Children’s Medical Center Dallas is a pediatric Level I Trauma Center that treats hundreds of children each year with life-threatening injuries. Dr. Abbe specializes in her work by helping parents prevent these injuries.
“Childproofing” is so tricky to do, Dr. Abbe explains, because children grow and evolve quickly; risk factors change with time. “What we really encourage parents to do is get down to your child’s eye level, even on your hands and knees, and walk around your house. You will know how to protect them.”
To protect your child from serious dangers, Dr. Abbe also recommends the following tips.
Follow bath safety rules
Drowning is the second leading cause of death for young children, behind car crashes, according to the A.P.A. Bathwater: Kids can drown in just 1 inch of water in the bathtub. If you are bathing your child, particularly if your child is younger than 2, you should never, ever leave the bathtub for any reason.
Seal up outside pools
Private pools outside the home risk children drowning. Dr. Abbe says about 50% of children that drowned in North Texas were not swimming, but gotten out to play or had an accident. This can occur year round and can be more hazardous during the winter months when pools are not front of mind.
“We definitely want to emphasize that if you have a pool you need to have a fence or barrier to prevent children going out the home and into the pool easily unnoticed,” Dr. Abbe says. “You can’t supervise kids at 24×7. “The more layers of separation you can put between your child and something dangerous, the better.”
Dr. Abbe recommends a water safety fence around the pool with a self-latching lock that kids can’t reach. You can also place alarms on back door so that children can’t go out without your knowledge. You should get children at a young age enrolled in swimming lessons. See more pool safety rules.
Create a safe space to sleep
You have to make sure infants or newborns are sleeping safely for babies. The sleeping area, be it a crib, pack-and-play or bassinet, should be flat and firm. It should not contain any toys, blankets, pillows or bumpers that could suffocate a baby.
How you get your child to sleep also matters. You should always place infants to sleep on their backs. Once they can roll over themselves, they can sleep on their stomachs.
New American Academy of Pediatrics guidelines also recommend that your child sleep in the same room as you for six months, to lower the risk for suffocation or sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). If you do it in an approved manner but at least you should never sleep with your baby in the same bed, which can raise their risk of death.
Lock away guns
An estimated 50% of homes in Texas have at least one firearm on the property. If you own a gun, keep it unloaded, locked up and stored away in a secure location. Trigger locks, gun safes and gun cabinets can help protect children.
“If your child is visiting another child’s house, you should ask the parents whether they have a gun in the house,” Dr. Abbe says. “It’s a sensitive topic, but parents should ask and know to make sure it’s put away and locked up correctly.”
Important storage areas need to be childproofed
Lock away and out of reach the following substances that could poison your child:
Alcohol
Cleaning supplies
Cosmetics
Medicines
Vitamins
“Sometimes what we lose in the kitchen is locking up cleaning supplies,” says Dr. Abbe. “You can find some really affordable latches to attach to the cabinets and drawers so that a curious child can’t open them.”
Even though you may not consider vitamins a threat to children, excessive amounts of vitamins can result in poison. Because children’s vitamins and medicines are often sweetened — either in liquid or gummy form — children can be poisoned if they drink or eat too many.
Also, Dr. Abbe says, all parents should have the number for poison control: 1-800-222-1222. Save this number in your phone or somewhere easy to reach, like on the refrigerator.
“You always want to contact poison control first before you call 911, and that’s because you can get the information you need more quickly,” Dr. Abbe says.
Install window guards
Falling is the main hazard for kids in the house. One of the most traumatic falls comes with falling out a window. Dr. Abbe recommends installing window guards or locks that prevent windows from opening more than six inches. These devices admit a breeze without adding risk of falls.
“A lot of parents assume that screens are robust enough to prevent children from falling,” Dr. Abbe says, “but that’s not true. The weight of children will not endure screens.”
Moreover, window blind cords are potential strangulation hazard for children. Parents should make certain that any window blind cords are completely out of reach from children.
Anchor furniture and TVs
Dr. Abbe says the trauma team at Children’s Health has noticed a rise in terrible furniture tip-over injuries, known as crush injuries. Whereas tube TVs used to be too heavy for a child to tip over, flat-screen TVs today can topple and pull down a dresser or bookshelf with them, seriously injuring kids.
You should anchor all furniture TVs, shelves, dressers, desks and other items to the wall to help protect your child. You can buy furniture tethers at home improvement stores to attach these items.
There are certainly many other ways to childproof your home, but these seven steps can be an important start to keeping your child safe from serious dangers.
