How to Prevent a Child Injury from These 3 Common Products

Pacifiers, baby bottles and sippy cups.

They are three very common products that small children use every day. And turns out, according to researchers at the Center for Biobehavorial Health and the Center for Injury Research and Policy at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, there is in fact a very high-level of risk of injury related to these products.  

These researchers looked at data collected between 1991 and 2010 from over 100 hospitals and discovered that over 45,398 children under the age of three visited the emergency room due to an injury from one of these products.

That’s one child admitted every four hours.

Breaking These Injuries Down

About 71 percent of the injuries were related to the mouth, and another 20 percent were injuries to the neck, face or head. Baby bottles were the biggest cause of injuries making up 66 percent of the cases. Pacifiers were next with 20 percent of the injuries, and then sippy cups at 14 percent.

Keep in mind that these injury numbers are only related to emergency room visits, which means the researchers didn’t include injuries reported by family physicians. Plus, there are likely injuries occurring that parents are treating themselves.

The numbers could even be higher than one child every four hours.

Why Do These Products Cause These Injuries?

The most likely reason that children are injuring their faces, necks and heads with these products is that they are running with these items in their mouths.

Over two-thirds of the injuries were suffered by children who were one years old, an age where children are starting to learn how to walk. And we all know that when a child is learning how to walk, he or she falls a lot, too. The researchers verified this notion by pointing out that 86 percent of the injuries involved falls.

How to Prevent These Injuries

There are recommendations in place by the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry that instruct parents on how to safely use these items.

For instance:

·       Wean a child off a sippy cup or baby bottle when they start to walk. Get the child to use a lidless cup so they don’t try to walk with it in their mouth, fall and injure their teeth or mouth.

·       Instruct children to sit while drinking.

·       Wean a child off a pacifier by the time he or she is six. Research shows that using a pacifier after that age may lead to ear infections.

While most injuries can be prevented due to a little supervision and guidance by parents, some injuries from these products are caused by defective, damaged or poorly-designed products.

For instance Target had to recall 264,000 Bunny Sippy cups due to bunny ears on the cups that injured six children, according to CBSNews.

What to Do If Your Child Was Injured by One of These Products

If your child has suffered an injury because he or she was using a defective, damaged or poorly-designed sippy cup, baby bottle or pacifier, then you deserve to assert your legal right to justice. Contact a child injury lawyer to learn more about what options are available to you under the law.