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Toddlers and Furniture Tip-Over Risk

The combination of toddlers and furniture such as dressers and bookshelves that are not properly secured can make for a particularly concerning and potentially dangerous combination. That’s why I was more than happy to share some parenting and “toddler brain” insights with Consumer Reports’ Rachel Rabkin Peachman about this very important safety topic.

Nov 5, 2018 by Rachel Rabkin Peachman

After her 2-year-old son, Shane, died from a furniture tip-over in 2011, Lisa Siefert started attending health fairs and other events to hand out furniture wall anchor kits – delicate-looking hardware packaged like picture hooks that are meant to secure furniture to walls.

She was tormented by the idea that families with small children didn’t know about this hidden tip-over danger in their homes. So spreading the word became her life’s work. Now, six years after……(read more)

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Kids & Cars Seats, Why Safety Shouldn’t Take a Back Seat When You Fasten in Your Kids

Originally posted on my US News & World Report parenting blog (Sept 22)

THIS WEEK HAPPENS TO BE Child Passenger Safety Week – a week specifically dedicated to ensuring that parents, as well as anyone else who transports children, use the correct car seat and properly buckle kids in each and every time children ride in motor vehicles.

As a pediatrician with 15 years of experience being a child passenger safety technician and instructor, I am most definitely a fan of this week-long focus. That’s because the stakes are high when it comes to buckling kids in properly. Motor vehicle-related injuries continue to be a leading cause of death for children in the U.S.; and buckling up is the best way to save lives and reduce injuries. Child safety seats, when used correctly, can reduce the risk of death by as much as 71 percent, according to SafeKids.org.

Yet, despite all we know about the importance of passenger safety, nearly three-fourths of cars seats are still not being used or installed correctly.

Adding to this problem is a second challenge that’s by no means exclusive to car seats, but which stands to seriously thwart our collective efforts to keep our children safe in them. I’m talking about the culture of “mommy-shaming.”

Consider the photo that just a few months ago managed to capture the attention of the parenting world. The photo I’m referring to wasn’t just any picture shared by any mom. It was a snapshot of the then 18-month-old son of pop culture royalty Kim Kardashian and Kanye West. It also just so happened to be a shot of a not-yet-2-year-old strapped into a car seat that was facing forward, rather than rear-facing seat as generally recommended for a child of this age.

The parenting and media response was fast and furious. While the virtual dust has settled, I still feel the need to weigh in on a couple lingering aspects of this cause celebre.

Read more….

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From Earthquakes to Outbreaks: Keeping Kids Safe

In the wake of this week’s earthquake, I’ve noticed that there’s been lots of subsequent commentary – from TV to Twitter feeds – about just how uneducated and unprepared east coasters were/are when it comes to earthquakes. This has been repeatedly noted to be in stark contrast to anyone and everyone who has ever lived on the west coast, for whom the eventuality of earthquakes and the associated disaster preparedness has become an accepted way of life. To be fair, I must say that it certainly seems understandable, given what most of the general public has been taught about plate tectonics, that we cut those east coasters who mistakenly ran out of buildings rather than hiding under their desks some slack.

That said, I also firmly believe this week’s unlikely earthquake has the potential to serve as a powerful teachable moment. No, the lesson learned isn’t that everyone on the east coast needs to go take all the same precautionary measures as those who live on known fault lines, or that any of us in the Midwest (with a few geographic exceptions) need to hurriedly sign up for a remedial course on “what to do in the event that an earthquake hits the heartland.” Rather, all the talk about earthquake preparedness (or its lack thereof) gives me the opportunity to bring up many important instances in which parents can and should expect the unexpected and plan accordingly. As a pediatrician, I can think of countless ways in which parents can better insure their children’s health and well-being by simply understanding the risks and planning ahead. For the sake of today’s blog, I offer you the following examples.

Tornados. For us Midwesterners, tornadoes are naturally of much greater relevance than earthquakes or hurricanes. And just as bolting one’s bookshelves to the wall may be foreign to us, I’m not sure how many Californians would recognize the meaning of a tornado siren and know to immediately head to the center of an interior room on the lowest level of a building away from corners, windows, doors and outside walls if a pre-designated storm shelter or basement isn’t available. All of the 250 students and staff at my child care center know what to do, however, as we faithfully practice each month getting everyone down into our custom-built basement storm shelter…all in 8 minutes or less. Similarly, my family has a game plan in place at home. Now would be a good time to make sure yours does as well.

Fire. Although tens of thousands of Americans die or are injured in fires each year – with a vast majority caused by house fires – I consider my family fortunate to have never personally experienced one. And I certainly never hope to. I don’t smoke, so the likelihood of cigarette ashes or a lighter starting a fire aren’t of concern. Nor are lit candles or the flames from a gas stove, since we don’t have either in our house. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t bother to take extra precautions, because I do. I have smoke detectors installed on every level of my home, and yes….they all have new batteries in them that I make a concerted effort to replace every year. These and other home prevention measures require minimal time or expense, and are more than worth the effort. While you’re at it, I also suggest inquiring as to what fire prevention and response measures your children’s child care and/or school have in place, and make sure they include regular fire drills and appropriately placed fire extinguishers/ sprinkler systems.

Vaccine-preventable diseases. Natural disasters, as well as man-made ones, shouldn’t be the only focus of your preventive efforts. Considered to be one of the greatest public health discoveries of all time, vaccines now offer us the opportunity to prevent diseases that in generations past claimed the lives of millions. Now I know that the threat of a disease such as polio (which until recently was all but eradicated) may not seem as real as it used to in the days of iron lungs, but the fact of the matter is that the threat of vaccine-preventable-diseases has proven itself time and again to be anything but hypothetical. And the likelihood of an outbreak of measles or pertussis, for example, is much greater than, say, an earthquake on the east coast, given that exposure to these diseases is only a plane-ride away.

Transportation Safety. I won’t belabor the importance of parents being committed to understanding, promoting, and enforcing transportation safety principles, except to say that injury-prevention innovations such as bike helmets, car seats and seatbelts should be considered worth their weight in gold. I don’t care if you’re the world’s best driver and your child is the world’s safest bike rider – you still need to prepare for the unexpected. I am also well aware that even if I convince you, you may well be faced with resistance from your children, as I have three helmet-resistant children of my own (who nevertheless have always been required to wear a bike helmet since the day they were introduced to tricycles). While lots of kids loudly and often successfully protest the use of booster seats, mine didn’t, because they knew it would fall on deaf ears.

Given that there are many, many more worthwhile preventive measures that you can take, I hope that your own pediatricians continue sharing these and other tips with you. I also want to leave you with several useful resources that will allow you to hope for the best for your children while pro-actively avoiding the worst.

Originally posted on Omaha World Herald’s Live Well Nebraska

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I would like to start this commentary by assuring you that I really am a fun parent. I’m not a germaphobe despite the fact that I majored in cellular molecular biology, I don’t wrap my children in bubble wrap or tell them not to run for fear that they’ll get hurt and their bedroom walls are not padded despite my ongoing commitment to injury prevention.

Okay, so now that I’ve gotten that out of the way, I’ll also tell you that my husband is convinced that all of you who read my column are going to start thinking of me as Debbie Downer if I keep writing about all of the dangers of childhood – a concern I fully understand. The problem is that I just can’t help it. Not when I know that unintentional injuries have long been and continue to be the leading cause of death for children under the age of fourteen, and that there’s a lot that we, as parents, can do to prevent these injuries from happening.

While I could take my pick of summertime safety topics to write about (and probably will over the upcoming weeks, since there’s no shortage of them), right now I think it’s well worth the time to focus on the fact that there’s going to be a whole lot of fireworks on the horizon in the not too distant future. In fact, in my west Omaha neighborhood, they’re already a nightly event.

Each year, without fail, I cringe at the thought of the potential dangers of fireworks. And just saying that makes me sound like my mother. As a kid, I admit I had a very hard time listening to my pediatrician mother explain the dangers of fireworks. And not just the “dangerous” kind, but essentially all of the fireworks that every other neighborhood child got to light and enjoy in peace without hearing about how many people lose eyes and limbs to fireworks. Back then, my siblings and I weren’t allowed to light anything but sparklers.

Knowing what I know now, even sparklers concern me. Of course, saying that alone makes me a bit of a social outcast, given that most families I know are out buying hundreds (if not thousands) of dollars worth of fireworks that they fully intend to fire off together in the front driveway. Now that non-profits are allowed to sell them right here in Nebraska, I can only imagine how many more amateur fireworks we stand to witness in the next few days and weeks. I only hope this increased availability doesn’t translate into an increase in fireworks related injuries.

For my part, I figured it might help if I shared a couple of commonly used expressions that I think are particularly relevant to the Fourth of July weekend celebrations. It is my sincere hope that they will give you pause, and then set you up to enjoy a fun-filled and safer family holiday weekend.

It’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye…and people actually do. According to my mother, it was the experience of being on call on the Fourth of July in the pediatric emergency room in Boston and seeing a child brought in who had been blinded by an exploding firework that shaped her future opinions of them. According to the Consumer Product Safety Commission, somewhere on the order of seven to nine thousand people a year are treated in hospital emergency rooms for fireworks-related injuries.

You’re playing with fire….literally. While you’d like to think that this would be obvious – akin to letting children stick their hands in the oven, for example – this particular burn risk seems to be lost on some otherwise safety-minded parents as soon as their children start begging to go out and join the fun of lighting explosives. And if you think I’m just talking about the more obviously dangerous explosive kinds of fireworks, consider the fact that even good old, presumably benign sparklers burn at temperatures of about 2000 degrees and are responsible for an estimated one third of fireworks-related injuries to children under age 5.

You’re throwing caution to the wind – definitely in a figurative sense, but also in a very literal sense. It makes absolutely no sense to me that one of the most well-accepted rituals involved in celebrating our country’s independence is the liberation of lit explosives into the wind in the hopes that they entertain rather than fall on a neighbors roof, tree, or other highly flammable objects.

And finally, knowing full well that there will still be lots of families lighting lots of fireworks in the upcoming days, I’ll leave you with some important fireworks safety tips from the Consumer Product Safety Commission:

  • Never allow young children to play with or ignite fireworks.
  • Avoid buying fireworks that are packaged in brown paper because this is often a sign that the fireworks were made for professional displays and that they could pose a danger to consumers.
  • Always have an adult supervise fireworks activities. Parents don’t realize that young children suffer injuries from from sparklers, [which are] hot enough to melt some metals.
  • Never place any part of your body directly over a fireworks device when lighting the fuse. Back up to a safe distance immediately after lighting fireworks.
  • Never try to re-light or pick up fireworks that have not ignited fully.
  • Never point or throw fireworks at another person.
  • Keep a bucket of water or a garden hose handy in case of fire or other mishap.
  • Light fireworks one at a time, then move back quickly.
  • Never carry fireworks in a pocket or shoot them off in metal or glass containers.
  • After fireworks complete their burning, douse the spent device with plenty of water from a bucket or hose before discarding it to prevent a trash fire.

Originally posted on Omaha World Herald’s Live Well Nebraska

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Kids and Cars: Teen Driver Safety

News of teen car crash victims invariably get me choked up, but I have recently found myself thinking even more than usual about teenage drivers. I’m sure this is in large part due to the fact that my oldest child has now started talking about what car she hopes to drive in the not-too-distant future. I’m pretty sure it’s also because of the recent news detailing the incredibly sad local story about teenage sisters involved in a fatal crash.

But to be honest, this time of year always makes me think about the risks involved in newly licensed teens getting behind the wheel. I’m not sure why the time of year should make a difference – since the premature death of a teenager is without exception an horribly sad occasion in any season. But there’s apparently something even more devastatingly newsworthy about covering the senseless loss of life when it happens on prom night or just after graduation when teens should be excitedly preparing to embark on their future, not being laid to rest.

Needless to say, my heart always goes out to the families and friends of the more than 3000 teens who die in motor vehicle crashes each year. At the same time, my thoughts also turn immediately towards helping make sure you and every other parent (myself included) know what parents can do to protect our own children from such a tragedy.

It’s important to start by being aware of just how common it is for teenagers to be involved in motor vehicle crashes. Not only do car crashes continue to rank as the number one cause of death for teens, but 16 to 19 year olds are four times more likely to be fatally injured than 25 to 69 year olds.

Having said that, I feel the need to assure you (and my own teenagers, if they happen to read this) that my goal here isn’t to convince you that you should take away the car keys until your child reaches the age of 25. Rather, it’s to tell you that there is good evidence to support the notion that what you do as a parent, including the limits you set when it comes to your teen’s introduction to driving, is exceedingly important.

So what can you do to limit your teen’s crash risk? The good news is there’s actually a lot you can do.

  • Practice, practice, practice. Be aware that a teen’s greatest lifetime risk of crashing is in the first 6 months after getting a driver’s license – a risk that is in large part attributed to inexperience. In fact, seventy-five percent of all serious crashes involving teens have been related to three main critical errors of inexperience – lack of scanning for (and responding to) hazards, going too fast for road conditions, and distractions. Based on what we now know, however, the number of supervised hours that teens get behind the wheel before getting their driver’s licenses makes a big difference.
  • Set limits. It should come as no surprise that parents who set appropriate boundaries –– both on and off the road – have been shown to have a big impact on their children’s health and well being. Teen drivers are no exception. According to a study published in Pediatrics, teen drivers whose parents set and enforced rules were more likely to wear seat belts and less likely to speed, get in crashes, drink and drive, or use cell phones.
  • Help your teen avoid distractions. While it’s a good idea to avoid any and all distractions that stand to interfere with your teen’s undivided attention, there are 2 driving distractions in particular that have been proven to kill teens: cell phones and other teen passengers. In fact, nearly two out of three teen crash deaths for 16-year-old new drivers involve additional teen passengers.
  • Know the rules. Every state is different when it comes to laws about teen driving and learner’s permits. A majority of states – Nebraska included – place restrictions on new drivers in the first 6 to 12 months of driving. Referred to as a Graduated Driver’s License (GDL), such limits as nighttime and passenger restrictions have been proven to reduce crash risk. Nebraska’s GDL restrictions include no driving between midnight and six a.m. until the age of 17, and no passengers other than family members for the first 6 months of driving.
  • Agree upon the rules of the road. This is easiest done by printing out a Parent-Teen Driving Agreement (such as the one from the CDC or Checkpoints) and making sure you and your teen both take it seriously
  • Drive by example. Just as with every other aspect of parenthood, your teen driver will be watching you. Logging lots of supervised practice hours is definitely important for your teen’s future driving safety, but so is serving as a role model by making sure you always wear your seatbelt and put down your cell phone while driving.

For more very valuable information on teen driver safety, I recommend the following sites:

Originally posted on Omaha World Herald’s Live Well Nebraska

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Preventing Carbon Monoxide Poisoning: What Every Parent Needs to Know

In an attempt to maintain my glass-half-full view of the world, I’m always relieved when I sit down to read the morning paper and come across a good tragedy-averted story interspersed amongst the doom and gloom. So believe me when I say I was particularly happy to read John Schreier’s article, Carbon monoxide sickens students. While it’s unfortunate that more than 40 UNL students recently wound up at the hospital after waking to symptoms consistent with carbon monoxide poisoning, the operative word in this description would have to be “waking.” Because the fact of the matter is that carbon monoxide is one of the leading causes of poisoning deaths in the United States. Often dubbed “the silent killer,” this toxic gas is colorless, tasteless and odorless, but has the deadly ability to disrupt the body’s use of oxygen. In other words, things could have been worse at the UNL fraternity house. Much worse.

Recognizing this, my thoughts immediately turned to the fact that this near-tragedy (with its thankfully happy ending) might momentarily grab people’s attention long enough for me to convey some very important safety information.

I certainly don’t mean to imply that no one would pay attention to information about carbon monoxide precautions except in times of tragedy. But human nature has me convinced that it’s all too easy for the out-of-sight, out-of-mind principle to take over – especially when it comes to the many hidden and/or silent dangers around the house and a not-so-subtle reminder of these dangers can go a long way towards helping focus everyone’s attention on the following simple yet potentially life-saving home safety measures.

  • Recognize the potential signs of carbon monoxide (CO) poisoning. Symptoms can admittedly be non-specific, variable and wide-ranging, but most commonly include headache, nausea, dizziness, and a general feeling of malaise that can be confused for a viral infection. See a doctor right away if everyone in the household begins to experience flu-like symptoms at the same time, especially if the symptoms seem to get better upon leaving the house.
  • Have the number to Poison Control (1-800-222-1222) posted by the phone and don’t hesitate to call it should you suspect CO poisoning.
  • Make sure to put a CO detector on each level of your home.
  • Never leave a car running in the garage, even if the garage door is open. Dangerous fumes can not only fill the garage in minutes, but also easily seep their way into the house.
  • Get household appliances that have the potential to leak carbon monoxide such as furnaces, wood stoves, fireplaces, gas water heaters, ovens, stoves and clothes dryers serviced yearly to make sure they are in good working order.
  • Refrain from using charcoal grills indoors (or in closed-in spaces) and never use a gas oven to provide heat for your home, as both can be dangerous sources of carbon monoxide gas.

Originally posted on Omaha World Herald’s Live Well Nebraska

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Helping Children Cope: What Parents Can Do In the Wake of Another School Shooting

My children and I took our first trip to India over the holidays, accompanying my U.S.-born husband who hadn’t been back to visit relatives in over 20 years. The trip was eye-opening. We traveled all over India – making our way through big cities and tiny villages as we visited relatives and introduced our children to a world very different from the one they know.

On the sixteen-and-a-half hour flight back from Delhi to Chicago, my husband and I discussed how we sincerely hoped that the 3-week experience would help shape how our children see the world. We wanted them to never take for granted what they’ve got in the relative safety and security of their lives in Omaha.

Arriving back in the U.S. early Thursday morning, I dutifully called my mother to let her know that we had made it back safe and sound. Even though I’m now in my 40’s with a family of my own, my mother all but sits by the phone waiting for me to call and let her know that I’m okay. It was she who first told me what had happened at Millard South High School. I quickly thought about whether I knew anyone involved. I then selfishly reflected on how fortunate I was that my own three children – all Millard students – were out of harms way and with me at the time of the school shooting. No – my oldest won’t start high school until next year and she won’t be at Millard South, but I was nevertheless grateful that she and her brothers didn’t even have to experience the ensuing lockdown that I’m told had Millard students under desks and in the dark until the threat had passed.

And then I couldn’t help but turn my thoughts to the actual events of the day and what it must have been like to have been there. To be the parent of a Millard South student on the first day of school after the holiday break. To be the principal or the assistant principal. And yes – even, what it must be like to be the parents of the student responsible for the devastation.

I’m sure many of you must have reacted the same way. The reason I’m so sure is that in a certain sense, I’ve dealt with this sort of tragedy before. Not at Columbine (although my family did move to that area only shortly after the country’s worst high school massacre), or at any of the handful of other school shootings that have taken place over the past several years. My experience in helping parents (including myself) cope with this sort of threat to our children’s (and our own) sense of safety dates back to 2001.

You see, at the time of the reported terrorist attacks that destroyed the World Trade Center towers, a section of the Pentagon, and thousands of lives, I was the pediatrician responsible for content creation at a prominent national parenting media company. With a sincere desire to do anything I could to help parents in the wake of the attack, I sat down and wrote an article on the morning of September 11th entitled Helping Your Children Cope with the News of Reported Terrorist Attacks.

As I sat down this morning to figure out what I should write about the Millard South shooting that would be of any help or comfort, my September 11th article kept coming to mind. While the advice I offered back then was in response to a tragic event of unprecedented and enormous proportions, the sad fact is that in the minds of children, violence is violence regardless of the scope.

At it’s core, the following advice adapted from what I first wrote in 2001 applies every bit as well to violence in 2011, and will hopefully provide parents with several things they can do to comfort their children and help them make some sense out of senseless tragedy.

Personal safety. Any time senseless tragedy occurs, it’s important to offer immediate reassurance in any way possible – starting with the reassurance that your own family and friends are okay.

Routine. I have always believed that a predictable routine and consistency are important in helping children feel safe in their world. Never is this truer than in the context of tragedy. When our core sense of security is shaken, maintaining regular routines such as going to school and work may seem disrespectful, insignificant or difficult, but they give children (and adults) back some sense of structure and security.

Details and distance. One of the most striking aspects of the aftermath of September 11th was the intense media coverage. Without officially counting, I must have literally seen the planes crash into the twin towers a thousand times. The fact of the matter is that its human nature to watch. While I was on the other side of the world the day of the Millard South shooting, I’m sure that the coverage was (understandably) intense. As a parent, it’s especially important to also understand, however, that young children who repeatedly witness the news coverage of a shocking event are likely to be left feeling frightened and confused and may even feel like they’re re-living the experience. In this day and age of 24 hour media coverage, this is as good a time as any to turn off the television, at least when young children are around.

Someone is in charge. One of the fundamental aspects of raising children who feel safe and secure in their world is providing them with a sense that there are people in authority making sure that everyone is going to be safe. While a school shooting inevitably threatens our own parental sense of security, it’s helpful to focus your child’s attention (and your own) on what is being done to keep your child safe. Despite last Wednesday’s shooting, school remains one of the safest places your child can be.

Perspective. Despite the fact that I provide parenting advice for a living, I have yet to figure out how to explain the need to maintain perspective without seeming to minimize the tragedy for those involved. While its important for all of us who weren’t directly related to or involved in the school shooting at Millard South to remind ourselves that the overwhelming majority of schools across the country are safe (just as we had to remind ourselves on September 11th, 2001 that almost all planes and buildings were still completely safe), I can’t bring myself to say it without acknowledging that this provides no solace to students, friends, colleagues and family of Assistant Principal Vicki Kaspar. I only wish there was something more I could say that would help.

Originally posted on Omaha World Herald’s Live Well Nebraska

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A Parent’s Guide to Safe Holiday Travel with Kids

The season for holiday travel is almost upon us, so I thought it best to get down to basics and share some safe and practical travel tips for everyone facing the prospect of packing up the family car or heading off to the airport this holiday season. While I’m all about practicality, I also want to make sure that safety doesn’t inadvertently get left behind (or just plain forgotten) as you set out to share the holidays with family and friends.

Avoid flying objects. While car travel certainly eliminates some of the stress of figuring out how to fit everything you and your children will need for your holiday vacation into a single suitcase (or two), don’t lose sight of the fact that anything in the car that isn’t safely secured can, in the blink of an eye, become a dangerous projectile in the event of a crash. This not only includes unrestrained passengers, but any suitcases and other holiday “essentials” you bring along. To keep all passengers safe, keep all loose objects out of the passenger area of the car – tucked in the trunk or otherwise secured.

Use appropriate restraint. All too often, parents are tempted to compromise on car seats in the name of streamlined travel and efficiency. But the fact of the matter is child passenger safety never takes a holiday. That means that for anyone traveling by car, each and every passenger needs to be appropriately restrained.

  • For infants and children, this includes age-appropriate, correctly installed car seats.
  • Lap-shoulder belts need to be available for all adult passengers, as well as any children riding in booster seats. Simply using a lap belt alone doesn’t suffice when it comes to safety.
  • For those traveling by air, not only should you plan carefully so that your child can be safely restrained on the airplane (which means an FAA approved car safety seat or restraint for all children under 40 pounds), but also at your destination.
  • While most car rental agencies can arrange in advance to have car seats available, it always safest to plan on bringing your own. It may mean more to carry, but car seats are a must-have for holiday travel.

Dress for the occasion. It’s obviously important to make sure that you pack plenty of clothing to suit the climate of wherever you’re headed – especially given that young children are known to be more susceptible to both hot and cold temperatures.

  • For car travel, remember to consider what you’d want to have on hand should your car break down or get stuck along the way. While it’s not recommended that children wear bulky winter coats under their car seat harness straps (since this just adds slack into the harness system), you absolutely want to have coats on hand for any planned (or unplanned) stops along the way.
  • And as someone very accustomed to airplane travel, I can assure you that the most predictable thing about the temperature in the airplane cabin is its unpredictability. Not only is it wise to dress your child (and yourself) in layers, but bring a few extra items in your carry on.

Keep close tabs. Holiday travel inevitably throws off parenting routines. This means that you’ll want to pay extra attention to keeping a close eye on your child.

  • When traveling by car, never leave your child alone or unattended – even for a minute, no matter how much extra time or effort it may take to have the whole family pile out of the car for what you were hoping would be a very quick pit stop.
  • Whether on the road or in the air, also make sure your children have some form of identification with them, that preschoolers (and older) ideally know their own names (first and last) and a phone number, and that you have discussed with your children what to do in the event that you become separated.
  • If your children have already entered the digital age and have cell phones, this is a great time to have them on hand as well.

Originally posted on Omaha World Herald’s Live Well Nebraska

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Holiday Toy Safety Tips for Families

With December now upon us, it’s hard not to have all things holidays and winter top of mind. I’ve therefore decided to dedicate this month’s weekly blogs to what I consider to some of the most relevant parenting-meets-safety topics of the season. I hadn’t yet decided whether to first write about holiday travel tips, the selection of safe toys for tots, or addressing cold weather & frostbite concerns. But after a long weekend spent bombarded by Black Friday sales ads on television, literally three inches of ad inserts stuffed in Sunday’s paper, and a ridiculous number of CyberMonday emails filling my inbox, I am more convinced than ever that sharing a few important toy safety reminders with you now – during the peak of toy buying season – will go the longest way towards insuring that you and your family have a fun-filled and safe holiday season!

Before we get to the actual toy tips, however, I feel the need to acknowledge the fact that sharing toy-related injury information during this otherwise joyous time of year always makes me feel a bit like the grinch. Unlike the grinch, however (who was clearly in the business of indiscriminately taking away children’s toys), I hope to help you keep unsafe toys out of your children’s hands. To do that, it’s important to acknowledge that there are unsafe toys out there – some inherently unsafe, and others simply unsafe when they fall into the wrong hands.

According to Safe Kids, there were an estimated 181,900 toy-related injuries in 2009 alone – nearly half of which were in children under the age of 5. In order to avoid becoming part of next year’s statistics, I suggest using the following toy safety tips, derived from the Consumer Product Safety Commission, Safe Kids, and the American Academy of Pediatrics to guide you in the purchase of safe toys for the holiday season and throughout the year.

  • Pay attention to age-restrictions. When the box clearly states that a toy is “For ages 3 and up,” pay heed! I understand that it can be tempting to assume your two-year old is smart enough to handle anything a three-year old can. But when it comes to on-the-box age limits, the recommendation has nothing to do with smarts and everything to do with safety. Simply put, the small parts inside have been determined to pose a very real choking hazard to those under the age of three.
  • Keep older siblings’ toys away from younger children. I am well aware that even getting one’s children to share or put away their toys can be a parenting challenge, but for safety’s sake it is especially important to make sure that young children don’t get their hands on the small parts or other safety risks that are meant to be played with exclusively by their older siblings.
  • Be aware of top toy hazards. Your child’s wish list isn’t the only one where certain toys rise to the top. The top 5 toy hazards identified by the CPSC include:
    • Scooters and other riding toys. It may not make me particularly popular with your children when I tell you that riding toys cause more injuries than any other group of toys. Nor are they likely to want to hear that anything on wheels should always be accompanied by helmets and appropriate safety gear. But popularity is not what I’m after when I tell you that riding toys go fast, and falls can be deadly.
    • Small balls and other toys with small parts. Remember the advice to
    • While inflated balloons certainly add life to any party, it’s the broken or un-inflated balloons that can cause choking or suffocation and consequently put a child’s life in jeopardy. While the CPSC warns about the risks for children under the age of 8, this sage cautionary advice should be applied to all.
    • Small magnets like those found in building, science and other play sets seem to have become quite popular, but have the unfortunate ability to wreak serious havoc on the intestinal tract if swallowed. They really should be avoided altogether for children under 6, and used with caution by older children.
    • Chargers and adapters. These toy accessories can pose a serious burn risk to children. If you’re going to purchase toys that require them, be sure you also require adult supervision.
  • Read instructions carefully…and then follow them.
  • Get rid of any plastic wrappings on toys as soon as your children open them so that they don’t become dangerous play things.
  • Keep current on toy safety and other holiday safety tips, as well as any recall information from the CPSC, SafeKids, and the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Originally posted on Omaha World Herald’s Live Well Nebraska

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Life-Saving Safe Sleep Tips for All Parents & Caregivers

Of all the topics I routinely discuss with parents, sleep has to rank right at the top of the list. This shouldn’t come as a big surprise, given that a good night’s sleep (or the lack thereof) can have a significant effect on just about everything else we do. When it comes to children’s overall health and well-being, it’s hard to sleep through all of the studies that reinforce that teenagers need more sleep (9 hours a night as compared to 8 for adults) in order to perform well at school, and that plenty of nighttime sleep (on the order of at least 10 hours a night) appears to be as important for keeping obesity at bay in young children as diet and exercise.

What I want to discuss today, however, isn’t just children’s need for an adequate amount of sleep, but the importance of safe sleep. While there are certainly aspects of safe sleep that apply to older children (bunk beds spring to mind), safe sleep has held a particularly prominent place in the national parenting consciousness every since the 1990s when the identified link between belly sleeping and Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) led the American Academy of Pediatrics to recommend back sleeping in 1992. This was followed in 1995 with the official launch of the Back To Sleep Campaign.

While over a decade of subsequent parent education efforts have resulted in a dramatic increase in the number of back-sleeping babies (from 25% in 1992 to 85% in 2008), recent years have brought no additional increase in back sleeping. In fact, we may have started to backslide when it comes to insuring babies’ safety while sleeping. In the course of little over a single devastating month back in Feb/March of 2008, six babies died in Douglas County alone – all classified as SIDS attributed to bed sharing and suffocation.

While any increase in infant deaths is concerning, to say the least, the good news is that we know a great deal about what we need to do to keep babies safe while sleeping and reduce their risk of SIDS. The much larger task at hand is simply to make sure that all new and expectant parents and infant caregivers know the most effective ways to create safe sleep environments for babies.

This is the challenge being addressed in a new National Safe Sleep Education Campaign by the US Consumer Product Safety Commission, the American Academy of Pediatrics and Keeping Babies Safe. Their latest recommendations for providing a safe sleep for all babies include:

  • Place infants to sleep on their backs
  • Use a firm, tight-fitting mattress
  • Never use extra padding, blankets or pillows under baby
  • Remove pillows or thick comforters
  • Do not use positioning devices – they are not necessary and can be deadly
  • Regularly check cribs for loose, missing or broken parts or slats
  • Do not try to fix a broken crib
  • Place cribs or playpens away from windows and window covering cords to avoid fall and strangulation hazards
  • Place baby monitor cords away from cribs or playpens to avoid strangulation

These life-saving safe sleep tips can also be found in the campaign’s newly released 7 minute video, narrated by renowned journalist Joan Lunden and available for viewing or download on the AAP’s HealthyChildren.org and on the Keeping Babies Safe website. Additional information about safe sleep can also be found on in the newly revised 2nd Edition of my book, Heading Home With Your Newborn (AAP, Sept 2010), and on the Nebraska Department of Health & Human Services Website.

Originally posted on Omaha World Herald’s Live Well Nebraska