News Moms Need

Our daughter is on the verge of crawling. I’m excited, but nervous at the same time. Everywhere I look around our house I see a potential hazard — the stairs, furniture, cabinets, outlets, lamp cords and book cases. We have a lot of work to do! We plan to go through one room at a time on our hands and knees to make sure we don’t miss anything, remove/secure potential risks and make a shopping list as we go.

A close friend of mine (hi Tricia!) appeared on the evening news a couple of days ago. Her home was assessed by a professional who offered some great recommendations on making her home safer for her toddler twins.  Click here to watch the clip.

According to Safe Kids Worldwide more than 4.5 million children are injured in the home every year. Taking simple prevention measures and closely supervising your children can help protect them from common household hazards, such as fires, burns, drowning, suffocation, choking, firearm injury, poisoning and falls. A few easy, relatively inexpensive steps – locking household cleaning materials in a cabinet out of reach, installing carbon monoxide detectors and smoke alarms, blocking stairways with baby gates – can greatly reduce your child’s risk of injury in the home.

The March of Dimes and Consumer Reports have worked together to produce a helpful online guide called, Safe Products for Baby. It includes shopping and safety tips for car seats, strollers, cribs, changing tables, play pens, clothing, bathtubs and more. Click here to check it out.

Please feel free to share any safety tips that you may have!

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) has announced a recall of toy workshop sets and trucks from the company Little Tikes.

The toys have large, plastic toy nails that are a choking hazard. The nails are red and blue in color. Anyone who owns these toys should stop using them immediately.

The nails are about 3 inches long and about 1 inch wide (see the image that accompanies this post).

Evenflo has recalled thousands of high chairs. Because of problems with the design, the seat may fall backwards or detach. Children can fall backwards or out of the chairs. Also, if parts come lose, they could be choking hazards.

For more, read the statements from Evenflo about the recall of its Majestic and Envision high chairs.

Evenflo has recalled Majestic high chairs made before January 2007. They may lead to falls or choking. If you own one of these chairs, stop using it immediately.

Plastic caps and metal screws on both sides of the high chair can loosen and fall out. A child may put the caps or screws in her mouth and choke.

If the caps and screws come loose, the seatback of the high chair may fall back or detach. Children may fall out or hit other objects. They could break bones or have serious cuts, scrapes and bruises.

For more information, visit the Web site of the Consumer Product Safety Commission.