Safety Tips from Brenner Children's Hospital
Winston-Salem -- Brenner Children's Hospital offers the following Safety Tips:
Scooter/Bicycle Safety
Keeping your speed down is essential to preventing injuries, according to Dr. Charles Turner, a pediatric surgeon at Brenner Children's Hospital. Children should not be allowed to jump over ramps or to ride in a street with traffic. Wearing safety helmets, knee and elbow pads can reduce injuries.
Parents should closely supervise their children to make sure the child has control and can ride safely.
Lawnmower Injury Prevention
When children are injured in a lawnmower incident, they often times can lose fingers, toes, hands and feet, according to Dr. Robert Letton, a pediatric surgeon at Brenner Children's Hospital. Many require extensive surgery and all can be prevented.
Children should be at least 16 years old to operate a riding lawn mower and 12 years old to operate a push mower. Children under six years of age should be kept indoors and should not be allowed to ride as passengers on mowers. Parents or grandparents should never lift children onto a running, riding mower.
Children should wear shoes that cover their toes and feet and should be watched carefully. Children should never touch a lawnmower that has been recently used and adults should never pour gasoline into a hot lawnmower.
Gun Safety Tips
Each year in North Carolina about 19 children are killed in accidental shootings that could have been prevented, according to Dr. Robert DuRant, an expert on violence among children and adolescents at Brenner Children's Hospital. An average of 46 children, ages of 10 --19, use a gun to kill themselves in North Carolina each year, making suicide the number one cause of death of North Carolina adolescents.
Gun owners must properly store their firearms if they want to ensure that these deaths are curtailed. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that you remove firearms from a home with children. If you must have a gun in the house, then store it safely.
Ammunition and guns should be stored in separate locked locations -- away from each other. Parents should never have a loaded gun in the house. Put cable locks on guns so that only the owner has immediate access to the firearm.
All firearms should be cleaned when children are not present.
Parents should never encourage their children to "play" with guns and children should never be allowed to handle firearms without adult supervision.
Children who enjoy the sport of hunting should be trained how to properly use a firearm and should never be allowed to fire a gun without adult supervision.
If a child or adolescent has been diagnosed with depression or problems with anger management, guns should be removed from the home.
Kitchen Burns
Each year, nearly 24,000 children ages 14 and under are treated in emergency rooms for scald burns -- a common kitchen hazard, according to Dr. Robert Letton, a pediatric surgeon at Brenner Children's Hospital. Keep hot foods and liquids away from young children.
When you are teaching your child to cook, make sure that he or she is closely supervised and that essential oven mitts, hand towels and safety devices such as fire extinguishers are on hand. Never leave a child alone in the kitchen.
The National SAFE KIDS Campaign recommends the following tips for keeping children safe as they learn to help out in the kitchen:
* Never hold a child while cooking or drinking hot liquids.
* Put pans on back burners and turn all pot handles toward the back of the stove.
* Use caution when heating food and liquids in the microwave. They can become very hot and burn skin in seconds. Children under age 10 should not be allowed to remove heated items from the microwave or stove.
* Make sure you and your children wear close-fitting clothing when cooking.
* Never leave cooking food unattended -- it is the number one cause of house fires.
* Place hot foods and liquids away from the edges of counters and tables.
* Place items sitting on tablecloths or placemats out of a child's reach, so that young children cannot pull hot food or liquid down and scald themselves.
* Unplug appliance cords when not in use and keep them tied up out of children's reach.
Bicycle helmet safety
North Carolina laws require that children under the age of 16 wear a bicycle helmet. So do many other states. A helmet is a necessity, not an accessory, and parents can be fined if their child does wear his or helmet, according to Dr. Charles Turner, a pediatric surgeon at Brenner Children's Hospital.
Bicycle helmets have been shown to reduce the risk of head injury by as much as 85 percent and the risk of brain injury by as much as 88 percent.
Make sure the helmet meets or exceeds the safety standards developed by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, American National Standards Institute, the Snell Memorial Foundation, the American Society for Testing and Materials or the new federal standard.
* Buy retro reflective clothing, stickers or bike reflectors for an older child who will be riding or skating at dawn or dusk. Reflectors on the and wheels also increase a child's visibility.
* Encourage children to use a horn or bell. A horn or bell can help bicyclists warn motorists and pedestrians of their presence.
* In addition to a helmet, make sure your child wears elbow pads, wrist guards and/or knee pads to prevent other injuries.
Poison Prevention
Store hazardous products out of a child's reach, according to Darrell Sumner, Ph.D., a pediatric toxicologist at Brenner Children's Hospital. Storing potentially poisonous products in locked cabinets is one of the best ways to prevent childhood poisonings.
Know which household products are poisonous. Something as common asiron tablets or cough medicines can be poisonous if a child swallows a sufficient amount.
Use hazardous household products when children are not around. Poisonings can occur when adults use household products like a bathroom cleaner or bleach. Never leave a child alone in a room with a hazardous product. It takes only seconds for a poisoning to occur.
The National SAFEKIDS coalition recommends the following tips on preventing household poisonings:
* Vitamins or other medicines should never be called "candy" or a treat. This can cause children to seek treats on their own. Children often mimic adults, so avoid taking medications in front of them. Vitamins, particularly those containing iron, can be poisonous to children. Keep them out of your child's reach at all times.
* Safely throw away old medicines on a regular basis by flushing them down the toilet. Regularly check your garage, basement and other common storage areas for cleaning and work supplies that you longer use and throw them away.
* Beware of certain cosmetics and personal products. Store items like fingernail polish remover and hair products out of a child's reach.
* Keep products in original containers with the correct labeling.
* Buy child-resistant packaging. Child-resistant caps do not guarantee that children cannot open a container, but they do deter children and give a parent time to stop a child from swallowing a poison.
* Keep poisonous plants out of reach. Learn which plants in and around your house are poisonous, and either remove them or make them inaccessible to children. Teach children never to put leaves, stems, bark, seeds, nuts or berries from any plant into their mouths.
* Never store non-food items or liquids in food or drink containers.
* Teach grandparents and relatives to take precautions, especially with their medications. Before the visit, ask them to post phone numbers to the local poison control center and their local physician near telephones.
If a poisoning does occur, follow these guidelines:
* Be prepared. Keep the phone numbers of the local poison control center, physician and emergency medical service next to each telephone.
* Call for help. If you suspect a child has swallowed something, check his or her mouth. Remove any remaining poison from the child's mouth, and then call your local poison control center, physician or other emergency medical services. When calling, bring the container of the ingested substance to the phone with you. Call even if you are not sure that the child was poisoned. Do not give the child anything to treat the poison until you have consulted a poison center or a health care professional. Keep a supply of Medical Activated Charcoal on hand, if it is available from your pharmacist.
* Vomiting can often aggravate the poisoning and cause even greater long-term damage.
* Rinse skin with cool (not cold) water.
* Flush eyes with water. If a poison has gotten into your child's eyes, gently hold his or her eyelids open and pour cool water into them for 5 to 10 minutes. Do not let the child rub his or her eyes, and do not put the child's head directly under a faucet to irrigate the eyes.
Childproofing a home
The best way to childproof your home is to get down on the floor on your hands and knees and explore the home the way your child might., according to Dr. Michael Lawless, a pediatrician at Brenner Children's Hospital. Cover every room in the home and ask yourself, what can I reach and what looks interesting?
Look for potential dangers between the floor and about three feet above the floor. When cleaning each week, be sure to pick up loose pins, coins or other items that may have been dropped accidentally.
Use safety gates. Each year, more than 2.5 million children are treated in emergency rooms for fall-related injuries, according to the National SAFEKIDS coalition. Falls from the tops of stairs can result in severe injuries. Install safety gates both at the top and bottom of stairs to keep infants and toddlers free from injury.
Also, Check the house for fire hazards. Look for obvious fire hazards such as frayed electrical wires or flammable materials near heat sources such as space heaters. Never run electrical cords under rugs.
Make sure your home, and any home your child visits, has working smoke alarms in every sleeping area on every level. Make sure to check the batteries on each alarm monthly and replace annually. It is recommended that you practice home fire drills and choose a family meeting spot. If you need help, contact your local fire department and request a home visit.
All-Terrain Vehicle Safety/Motorcycles
Children under 16 should not drive or ride on an all terrain vehicles (ATV) or a motorcycle, according to Dr. Charles Turner, a pediatric surgeon at Brenner Children's Hospital. These vehicles offer no protection in the event of an accident. In the case of a sudden stop, the child continues to go forward only to be stopped by a moving object such as a car or truck, or by a stationary object such as a tree.
No amount of protective gear can prevent injury. Children are precious and deserve our guidance and protection. The risk of death or permanent injury is too great to allow them to ride on ATVs or motorcycles.
Burning leaves/trash
Young children should never be allowed to tend a burning fire, according to Dr. Robert Letton, a pediatric surgeon at Brenner Children's Hospital. Children are not old enough to understand the dangers associated with fire. Adults and teenagers often misjudge flames from a fire, or try to prime the fire with a flammable substance, and get burned. It's best if children remain indoors when adults are burning leaves or trash.
Operating farm machinery
Children under 16 should not drive or ride on farm machinery, according to Dr. Charles Turner, a pediatric surgeon at Brenner Children's Hospital. These vehicles offer no protection in the event of an accident. When children are injured in a farm machinery incident, they often times can lose fingers, toes, hands and feet. Many require extensive surgery and all can be prevented.
Seat-belt/car seat safety:
Infants should ride in rear-facing safety seats until they are at least 20 pounds and one-year old, according to Dr. Thomas Pranikoff, a pediatric surgeon at Brenner Children's Hospital. Infants should never be placed in the front seat of a vehicle with a passenger-side air bag. Children older than 1 year who weigh between 20 and 40 pounds should ride in forward facing child safety seats as long as they fit. Children should ride in a booster seat if they weigh between 40 and 60 pounds.
Once the seatbelt falls across the chest without restricting the neck and the lap belt crosses the pelvis and not the abdomen, your child is ready for a seatbelt. All children should wear a seat belt once they outgrow their safety seat.
North Carolina law requires that a child wear a seat belt in the back seat of a car. Many other states have similar laws. Children under the age of 12 should never be allowed to ride in the front seat of a vehicle with an airbag.
Osteoporosis
Poor nutrition can result in health problems, especially when growing children do not receive essential vitamins and minerals, according to Dr. Robert Schwartz, a pediatric endocrinologist at Brenner Children's Hospital. Parents should offer their children healthy drink choices (low fat milk, water and 100% juice) and limit consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages (sodas, juice drinks, and sweetened tea).
Children should also have healthy choices for snacks such as fruits instead of high calorie and high fat snacks. Children and teenagers can be encouraged to decrease TV time and increase their active play. Parents can set a good example by eating a healthy diet themselves, participating in activities with their family, and leading a healthy lifestyle.
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