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!

My son has a boat and now that it’s warm he and his family are on it as often as possible.  My three-year-old grandson constantly begs, “Me fish, too!”  While he is always in a life jacket and they watch him like a hawk, he is taking a water safety course now.  Lots of pools and beaches have water safety and swimming lessons for toddlers.  They show parents how to properly fit their child into a life jacket and many safety precautions.  Kiddies are taught to float on their backs, to relax and not fear the water, and then to swim.  If your tots are small and can’t swim, look into a water safety course for all of you.  And if your kids are older, review some good safety tips.  For people between the ages of 5 and 24, drowning is the second cause of accidental death, so a review at the beginning of the summer is important.

It’s Memorial Day Weekend and lots of people are getting ready to start splashing in the pool and at the beach.  This week, May 18–24, 2009 marks the fifth annual National Recreational Water Illness Prevention Week. This yearly observance is an opportunity for everyone to learn more about healthy swimming behaviors and other steps to prevent recreational water illnesses (RWIs) and injuries. RWIs are illnesses spread by swallowing, breathing in the vapors from, or having contact with contaminated water in swimming pools, water parks, spas, interactive fountains, ponds, lakes, rivers, or oceans. Injuries at aquatics facilities can occur in or out of the water.  Read what the CDC has to say about preventing pool chemical injuries, ways to keep germs out of the pool, and more.   And have fun this weekend!