Toddler Safety at home
A toddler test the safety bars on a window.
Within the last week a 2.5 year old girl fell to her death from a 5th storey window. It's a tragedy beyond anything I can imagine. The pain for the family must be unbearable.
It made me begin to think: how can we make our homes safer for small children. Nurse Kathy of the Arrow team has written some articles in Chinese on child safety and we are going to also give you links to good articles and websites dedicated to keeping kids safe. Below is an excerpt from a good article on safekids.org about preventing falls. It has some good advice I hadn't considered. Please mom and dad, read it carefully. Helpers read the article and ask your employers if you can do a safety audit of the home. (a walkthrough looking for things that might pose a danger to small children).
"Falls
We work to prevent injuries from falls.From the moment your baby starts to crawl, the world is a magical place filled with new adventures and discoveries. From a child’s perspective, everything is a potential mountain to climb (that giant bookshelf), obstacle to overcome (those pesky stairs) or mysterious place to investigate (anywhere beyond the safety gate). Little bumps will happen but we’re here to help so these brave expeditions don’t result in something more serious.
The Hard Facts
Unintentional falls are the leading cause of non-fatal injuries for children in the United States. In 2012, unintentional falls resulted in nearly 3 million injuries requiring treatment in an emergency room. These injuries resulted from activities such as climbing on furniture, playing near an unsecured window, falling down stairs or playing on playgrounds."
- See more at: http://www.safekids.org/falls/
