Window Falls Injure Thousands of Kids Annually

Angela Haupt

Don't Start Too Early, and Take it Easy

Windows Are Big Source of Kids' Injuries

Window falls send more than 5,000 kids and teens to emergency rooms each year, and are serious enough to require a hospital stay a quarter of the time. Between 1990 and 2008, 98,415 children -- mostly under age 5 -- were hurt in a window-falling incident, researchers reported today in Pediatrics. Falls from first- or second-floor windows accounted for 94 percent of the accidents. "This is actually a common injury," study author Gary Smith, director of the Center for Injury Research and Policy at Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, told Time. "I just don't think it's on the radar screen of many parents. Not only are these injuries severe, but we know they are preventable." Parents can, for example, install window guards or remove furniture that could be climbed to access windows, the study authors say.

Preschoolers and Spray Cleaners Don't Mix

Parents may think they've childproofed the house, but household cleaners are still posing a risk to curious toddlers and preschoolers, despite years of effort to promote child-resistant packaging and safe storage of dangerous chemicals. The good news is that the number of children ages 5 and younger who landed in emergency rooms because of injuries caused by household cleaning products dropped by 46 percent from 1990 to 2006, according to a 2010 study in Pediatrics. But that still means that more than 10,000 children a year are being needlessly harmed by bleach, detergent, and other toxic yet common cleaners, U.S. News reported last year.

Spray bottles are the biggest culprit.

The percentage of injuries caused by products in spray bottles rose from 30.3 percent in 1990 to 40.8 percent in 2006. That may be because products are more commonly packaged in spray bottles these days; was anyone using laundry pre-treatment sprays in 1990? But the researchers, at Nationwide Children's Hospital and the Arizona Emergency Medicine Research Center in Tucson, speculated that it may be that the shut-off valves on spray products are no match for a curious 4-year-old. And in many cases, the child injured was not the one wielding the spray bottle. It's easy to imagine the appeal of a spray-bottle war for children too young to realize that the liquid inside isn't harmless water.

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