In­juries are one of the lead­ing caus­es of death in chil­dren and young peo­ple, but most child­hood in­juries can be pre­vent­ed with some sim­ple ac­tions. Here are some tips on how to pre­vent some of the com­mon types of ac­ci­dents seen in the emer­gency room:

Ac­ci­den­tal Poi­son­ing

House­hold items such as med­i­cines, clean­ers and house­hold plants can be poi­so­nous to chil­dren. In­fants and tod­dlers are par­tic­u­lar­ly in­quis­i­tive but have no sense of dan­ger, so they may try to eat or drink any­thing they can get their hands on.

Lock them up and away. Keep med­i­cines, cos­met­ics, es­sen­tial oils, house­hold clean­ers and laun­dry de­ter­gent pods in their orig­i­nal pack­ag­ing and store them up and out of chil­dren’s reach. Avoid de­cant­i­ng in­to bot­tles or food/drink con­tain­ers.

Read the la­bel. Fol­low la­bel di­rec­tions care­ful­ly and heed all warn­ings when giv­ing med­ica­tions to chil­dren.

Han­dle med­ica­tions, vi­t­a­mins and sup­ple­ments care­ful­ly. Safe­ly dis­pose of un­used or ex­pired med­ica­tion, vi­t­a­mins and sup­ple­ments. Nev­er leave med­ica­tions or vi­t­a­mins out on a kitchen counter or bed­side, even if your child has to take a dose lat­er. Al­ways re­lock safe­ty caps on med­i­cine bot­tles, and nev­er tell chil­dren that med­i­cine is ‘can­dy’ to get them to take it (even if they don’t like to take med­i­cine).

Check house­hold plants. Cer­tain plants can be ir­ri­tat­ing or poi­so­nous if eat­en, es­pe­cial­ly those with milky sap. If you are un­sure whether your house­hold plants are safe or not, keep them out of the reach of young chil­dren.

Falls

Chil­dren un­der five years of age are at the great­est risk of fall-re­lat­ed in­jury due to their cu­rios­i­ty, im­ma­ture mo­tor skills and a lack of judge­ment.

Su­per­vise close­ly. Su­per­vise young chil­dren at all times around po­ten­tial haz­ards, for ex­am­ple, stairs or play­ground equip­ment. Nev­er leave ba­bies or in­fants un­at­tend­ed on fur­ni­ture such as a so­fa, ta­ble or bed.

Home safe­ty. Use home safe­ty de­vices, for ex­am­ple, locks or guards on win­dows above ground lev­el, stair gates and guard rails. These can help save a young child from tak­ing a tum­ble.

Keep sports safe. Sen­si­ble pre­cau­tions and safe­ty gear can help pre­vent in­juries, for ex­am­ple, the use of hel­mets when rid­ing bi­cy­cles.

Drown­ing

Sad­ly, drown­ing is one of the lead­ing caus­es of in­jury-re­lat­ed death for young chil­dren ages 1-14, but par­ents can play a huge role in pro­tect­ing chil­dren with these tips:

Learn im­por­tant life sav­ing skills. Every­one should learn ba­sic swim­ming skills, for ex­am­ple, how to float and move through wa­ter, as well as car­diopul­monary re­sus­ci­ta­tion (CPR). Com­mu­ni­ty first aid cours­es are run by or­gan­i­sa­tions such as the Red Cross and St John’s Am­bu­lance, with Learn To Swim class­es at places such as the YM­CA.

Keep pools fenced off. Ide­al­ly, a pool fence should be self-clos­ing and self-latch­ing, and should com­plete­ly sep­a­rate your home and play area from the pool, to keep young chil­dren away when not swim­ming.

Close su­per­vi­sion is im­por­tant. Su­per­vise young chil­dren at all times when they are in or near wa­ter. Drown­ing can hap­pen quick­ly, so avoid dis­tract­ing ac­tiv­i­ties like us­ing al­co­hol or drugs, play­ing cards or talk­ing on the phone, and don’t let them play un­su­per­vised with po­ten­tial­ly haz­ardous beach toys (like li­los, beach balls or rings).

Use life jack­ets. En­sure chil­dren use life jack­ets when in and around nat­ur­al bod­ies of wa­ter, (for ex­am­ple, if out on a boat) even if they know how to swim.

Burns and scalds

Younger chil­dren are more like­ly to sus­tain in­juries from steam or hot liq­uids, while old­er chil­dren can be in­jured from flame burns. Im­por­tant tips are:

Safe cook­ing prac­tices. Nev­er leave food un­at­tend­ed while cook­ing on the stove, and turn the han­dles of pots and pans in­ward (so they face the back of the stove). Su­per­vise/re­strict chil­dren’s use of stove, ovens and mi­crowaves as ap­pro­pri­ate.

Take care with hot liq­uids. Hot drinks can still scald young chil­dren up to 15 min­utes af­ter they are made. There­fore, nev­er drink hot tea or cof­fee when hold­ing a ba­by or young child. Keep ket­tles and hot drinks out of reach, and nev­er pass hot drinks over the heads of ba­bies or chil­dren.

Be safe with hot sur­faces. Irons or hair straight­en­ers can still se­ri­ous­ly burn chil­dren sev­er­al min­utes af­ter be­ing un­plugged. Take care when us­ing them, and store safe­ly out of reach im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter use. Some hair straight­en­ers even come with spe­cial­ly de­signed cool bags for safe stor­age.

Re­mem­ber fire safe­ty. In­stall and main­tain smoke alarms in your home, and test them reg­u­lar­ly. Cre­ate and prac­tice a fam­i­ly fire es­cape plan (with emer­gency num­bers eas­i­ly vis­i­ble), and iden­ti­fy a safe, cen­tral meet­ing place out­side in the event of a fire.

Re­mem­ber, ac­ci­dents can hap­pen, but with a few sim­ple steps, the chances of a se­ri­ous in­jury due to a house­hold ac­ci­dent can be re­duced.