Child Safe: A Practical Guide for Preventing Childhood Injuries

Book by Mark A Brandenburg

Webster's dictionary defines an accident as "any event that happens unexpectedly." Child injury is no accident. Most of the injuries that occur to children are very predictable and can be anticipated. So if child injuries are not accidents, what are they? Well, they can be viewed as any other childhood disease. Your infant is at great risk of injury or death if not properly buckled into an automobile safety seat when a motor vehicle accident (MVA) occurs. This is predictable. We know with certainty that over four hundred infants will be killed in MVAs this year, most while unrestrained. By properly placing your infant in a safety seat, her risk of injury will be dramatically decreased. Is it an accident then if an unrestrained child is hurt in a MVA? Would it be considered an accident if a young child developed measles because a vaccination was not given?

So, when four hundred infants are killed in MVAs this year, consider them to have been victims of a disease, the disease of child injury -- or better yet, the epidemic of child injury. The automobile safety seat is a proven preventive measure for this particular disease -- consider it a vaccine. Child Safe is full of proven "vaccines" for the prevention of most child injuries. As Louis Pasteur once said, "When meditating over a disease, I never think of finding a remedy for it but, instead, a means of preventing it." Remember, child injury is not an unexpected event. It is not an accident; it is a disease that everybody can and must work to prevent rather than simply hope to treat in emergency rooms.

Every year in the United States 25 million children are physically injured. Trauma is the leading cause of death in children older than one year. And each year over twelve thousand children under the age of fourteen years are killed by injury and fifty thousand are permanently disabled. One out of every four children each year will receive medical attention for an injury. The statistics in this book are not meant to scare you, but to teach you about the dangers that children face in the modern world. The bright side of this story is that most of the common injuries affecting children today are preventable.

As an emergency physician, I treat sick and injured children every day. Many wonderful and exciting things happen in the emergency room, but so do some terrible things. The most anguishing moments I experience are when children are badly hurt. In many cases, our attempts to help injured children are successful and there is a happy ending. Too often, however, a child is critically injured or killed. Disability, pain, and suffering afflict these needlessly injured children. And when a child is permanently crippled or killed, not only is that child's life shattered, but so are the lives of family members and friends who suffer huge emotional tolls. What I see in the faces of injured children and their family members is a combination of shock, disbelief, horror, and tremendous grief.

"How could this have happened?"

"Why didn't I see this coming?"

"What should I have done differently?"

These are questions you never want to ask yourself. Child Safe was written so you don't have to. This book is for all parents, grandparents, and guardians of children. The inspiration for Child Safe came from the many parents who have asked me in the ER, "What could I have done to prevent this?" For obvious reasons, it is difficult to candidly answer that question after having just told a family about their child's injury or death. My belated answer comes in the writing of Child Safe. I want parents to be armed with the same information that is already well known to public health researchers and emergency physicians -- specifically, how and why children are injured. It made no sense to me that the most important people in society with regard to children -- namely you, the parents -- didn't have easy access to this information.

How to Use This Book

Children aren't "little adults"; they are different from adults in many, many ways. And to make things more complex, the basic characteristics of a child's physical and mental self evolve as he or she grows up. Only after we understand the unique characteristics of the various stages of childhood can we begin to recognize the situations that are unsafe for children.

Therefore, the many potential dangers discussed in Child Safe are organized in a very easy-to-follow format based upon the stages of child growth. The dangers that your child faces will change accordingly as she develops and matures. In early infancy a soft pillow in the crib is deadly. In later infancy the crib gym that hangs above can be a strangulation hazard. During the toddler years a five-gallon bucket of mop water is a drowning hazard. In older children auto-pedestrian and bicycle injuries are common. And, of course, drugs and alcohol also begin to play a role in childhood injuries during the junior high school years. If you are interested in reading about a single type of injury and how it can be prevented in each of the age groups, just follow the cross-references placed throughout the book.

Part I of Child Safe contains descriptions of common ways that children of all ages get hurt and how these injuries can be prevented.

Part II is organized into chapters that focus on age-specific injury patterns. Each chapter in Part II pertains to a specific stage of childhood. For the purposes of this book, an infant is between the age of zero and twelve months, a toddler is twelve months to three years, a preschooler is four to five years, and a school-aged child is six to thirteen years old. Throughout this book you will also find many true stories of children I have treated in the emergency room. The names of patients have been changed, but the details of their stories are accurate.

Part III is a comprehensive list of those products that have been recalled in the last four years because they have been found harmful or potentially harmful to children.

Child Safe Is Not Fiction

Reading this book and following the provided guidelines is the absolute best way for you to learn about child injury prevention. But Child Safe is not a book to be read once and then discarded. This is a book to be read and reread as your children grow up, and again when a newborn joins the family. First, read Child Safe from cover to cover, then read the specific chapters that pertain to your child as she approaches each age group. And periodically review the appropriate chapters when time permits. With each passing day newer products will be marketed that present yet unknown hazards to your child. So use your imagination when searching for possible scenarios that could hurt your child. If you can conceive that an injury might occur in a new and different way or by a new product, trust your instinct and take precautions, because it probably can. And don't be afraid to predict the possible scenarios in which your child might get injured -- you're not being paranoid, just smart. If a new idea comes to you, write it down. If you discover a new way children can be injured, please write and tell me about it. My Internet web site address is www.babyandchildsafety.com. I am always looking for newer and better ways to protect children. Good luck in raising and caring for your children, and remember -- always be Child Safe.