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!

Furniture and TVs sometimes tip over and cause injuries. The number of these injuries is increasing. Our wonderful big-screen TVs that are so perfect for the Super Bowl are part of the problem. These are the findings of a new study published in the medical journal Clinical Pediatrics.

One out of four of these injuries occurs when children pull over or climb on furniture. For children under the age of 7, the main hazard is the television. Children may injure their heads or necks or break bones. Tthese injuries can be serious.

So what can we do?

  * Place the TV low to the ground and near the back of the stand.

  * Attach TVs and furniture to the wall with safety straps or brackets.

  * Buy furniture that has wide legs and a solid base.

  * Install drawer stops on chests that have drawers.

  * Place heavy items close to the floor on shelves.

  * Don’t put your child’s favorite toy or the remote control on top of furniture or the television. Small children love these items and will reach for them every time.

Do you know any tips that can help? Be safe, everybody.