Child Safety Product Tips
The child products in your home were designed to enrich your child’s life. However, unless they are installed and used properly, they can become hazardous and even deadly. The Consumer Product Safety Commission, an agency of the U.S. Government, tests child products and offers advice on safe usage. The information in this article is compiled from research performed by the CPSC.
Child Safety Advice for Cribs and Crib Toys
Crib corner posts can be a strangulation hazard if a child’s clothing gets caught on a corner post or knob. Therefore corner posts should project no more than 1/16 of an inch above the end panel. This will prevent the hazard of a child’s clothing getting caught on the corner post. Decorative knobs or any other hanging decorations should be removed as they present a hazard of strangulation and also of enabling the child to climb or fall out of the crib. If the crib you are using has decorative corner post extensions remove them.
Some crib toys are a potential strangulation hazard. If your child is beginning to push up on hands or knees or is 5 months of age, whichever occurs first, you should remove all crib toys which are strung across crib or playpen area. These toys can be strangulation hazards and can also enable your child to fall out of the crib.
Crib Hardware Failure
Hardware failures can create strangulation/suffocation hazards by creating openings that can entrap a child. To prevent hardware failure of your child’s crib, do the following:
- Tighten all nuts, bolts, and screws periodically to make sure they are tight.
- Whenever crib is moved, be sure all mattress support hangers are secure
- Check hooks regularly to be sure none are broken or bent. Open hooks may allow the mattress to fall and create dangerous open spaces to catch your child.
- Use a crib which meets Federal Safety Standards and Industry Voluntary Standards for cribs and has a firm tight-fitting mattress.
Strollers
Baby Strollers can become strangulation/suffocation Hazards. Strollers are meant to be used with adult supervision. Therefore, NEVER leave a child unattended in a stroller because the child may slip into a leg opening and become entrapped by the head and strangle or suffocate as a result.
Bunk Beds
Bunk beds are handy and fun for kids but they can become a serious hazard if not installed and maintained properly. Children have died from strangulation, when entrapped in the guardrail of a bunk bed. Make sure that the space between the bed and the guardrail is not wide enough for the head to fit through. Another hazard is from the collapse of the mattress foundation for the top bunk. Make sure that the bunk bed is assembled exactly according to instructions. If you are not handy please have an experienced technician or carpenter install the bunk bed to make sure it is properly installed.
Toy Chests
A toy chest is a handy and practical item for your child’s room. But children are inquisitive and may get into the toy chest and close the lid. A spring-loaded lid-support device can keep a lid from falling on a child's neck or from closing and trapping a child playing inside the chest. This device is not expensive, available at most home centers and should be installed on all toy chests in your home.
Infant Carriers
Infant carriers are handy and convenient, but you need t exercise caution when you use an infant carrier. To prevent injuries and with an infant carrier seat, always use restraining straps and watch the child carefully, even when strapped in. Never, leave the child in the carrier on a soft or unstable surface.
Older Baby Walkers
To make walkers safer, CPSC worked with the industry to develop a new child product safety standard. Each walker meeting the new standard and certified by the Juvenile Products Manufacturers Association (JPMA) must meet one of these two requirements: 1) It must be too wide to fit through a standard doorway, or 2) it must have safety features, such as a gripping mechanism, to stop the walker at the edge of a step. Make sure that the older baby walker you purchase adheres to one or both of these requirements.
General Child Safety Tips
Strings, Cords and Necklaces
These are all obvious strangulation hazards. Never leave your child alone with any string, cord or necklace. Even though it may seem like a good idea, never tie a pacifier around your child’s neck. It’s more effort to follow your child around and present the pacifier when needed than to risk the chance of your child strangling on the pacifier cord.
Bathtub Danger
If the hot water in your tap gets very hot, you should install anti-scalding devices (or have them installed by a plumber) on your bathtub faucet. Anti-scald devices can keep water temperature below 120 degrees Fahrenheit to help prevent scald burn.
Child Drowning
It doesn’t take much water to drown a child. You don’t need a lake or ocean; children have drowned in 5 gallon buckets, toilets and bathtubs.
NEVER, even for a moment, leave your child unattended near water.
Keep small children away from buckets, toilets, and other containers of water.
Supervise young children at all times in the bathtub.
Child Poisoning
Children are curious and inquisitive. That’s why you need to prevent your child from getting into medicine cabinets and under cabinet locations where you store cleaning materials. Use child-resistant closures on all medicine cabinets and cabinets that hold household chemicals. Provide safety latches for all such cabinets in your bathroom, kitchen and workshop.
Preventing Child Choking
Do not allow children under the age of six to play with un-inflated balloons without supervision. If balloons pop, immediately collect the pieces of broken balloons and dispose of them out of the reach of young children.
Keep marbles, small balls and other smooth round objects away from children with a tendency to put these objects in their mouth.
Avoid rattles, squeeze toys, teething toys and other toys with ball-shaped ends. Choose rattles and similar toys with handles that are too large to get stuck in a baby’s throat.