How to Prevent Common Childhood Injuries

Every parent's worst fear is a serious injury to their child. Short of wrapping your child up in bubble wrap, you have to teach your children how avoid injuries. This article shows you how to prevent common childhood injuries.

Instructions

Difficulty: Challenging

1. Make certain that for all children food is cut into appropriate size pieces. Babies need much smaller pieces than do older children, but monitoring the size of food is one way to prevent choking. Airway obstruction injury is the leading cause of unintentional injury-related death among infants under age one.
2. Make certain to babyproof and safetyproof your home. Almost every parent babyproofs a home, but then forget about what comes next. Make sure that doors cannot be unlocked by children, tools are not left out to play with, food is not left cooking unattended on the stove and all chemicals are locked up. Approximately 45 percent of unintentional injury deaths occurred in and around the home. Unintentional home injury deaths to children are caused primarily by fire and burns, suffocation, drowning, firearms, falls, choking and poisoning.
3. Make certain that all playgrounds and places where children play truly are safe enough for them to play on. This goes for your house as well. Use nonslip pads for area rugs and make sure there is no standing water on the floor. Falls are the leading cause of unintentional injury for children. Children ages 14 and under account for a third of all fall-related visits to hospital emergency rooms.
4. Next, always insure that your children wear helmets any time they are riding bikes, scooter, wagons, etc. Almost 300,000 children each year are treated and/or hospitalized for bicycle related injuries, many relating to not wearing or improperly fitting helmets.
5. Make certain that you are always watching children and supervising them anytime that they are near water. This includes pools, lakes, beaches and even the bath. Drowning is the second leading cause of unintentional injury-related death among children ages one to 14. The majority of drownings and near-drownings occur in residential swimming pools and in open water sites. However, children can drown in as little as one inch of water.
6. Make certain that your child is always in a car seat as regulated by the law. Also make sure that you seat is installed properly. You can stop by your local fire station and they will check to make certain that they installed correctly. Motor vehicle injuries are the leading cause of death among children in the U.S. but many of these deaths can be prevented. Placing children in age- and size-appropriate restraint systems reduces serious and fatal injuries by more than half.
7. Have a talk with your child. Make sure that they know, understand and practice the basic kid rules: Look both ways before crossing the street; don't run out into the road; don't fight, etc. Children need to understand that they play an important role in preventing injuries and bear some of the responsibility depending on their age.

Tips & Warnings

• When an injury does occur, make certain to speak with your child about the events that led up to that injury. Talk about what could have been done differently and how they can change their behavior in the future.