Childproof Your Home
As this is the Home issue of Fine Living Lancaster, we thought it would be appropriate to write an article on child proofing your home. If you have a little one of your own or a grandbaby, niece or nephew, or friend’s baby who likes to visit, it’s critically important to be mindful of the hazards in your home and to keep the little ones safe!
Babies can be crawling by six to nine months and taking their first steps between nine and twelve months. It’s important to consider safety before those first crawls and steps happen, to keep babies out of harm's way!
A few recommendations: cover all unused electrical sockets with outlet plugs. Move furniture, lamps, or electronics to hide cords. Wherever possible, move cords from baby’s reach and tie up any excess cords. Secure furniture and electronics—such as bookcases and TVs—so they can’t be pulled down. Did you know that television tip-overs cause the most injuries for children younger than 10-years-old? Every year, 14,700 children younger than 18 years of age visit the emergency department for injuries from furniture tip-overs. The highest number of tip overs happen to children under 7 years of age.
Use protective padding to cover sharp edges and corners, such as those from a coffee table or fireplace hearth. Pool noodles are a cheap and easy way to protect edges. Just cut a slit along one side and fit it over the edge. Install safety gates at the bottom and top of stairwells or use them to block entry to unsafe rooms. Use safety latches on cabinets and doors.
Store all medicines, cleaning products, and other poisons out of your baby’s reach. Make sure everything is properly labeled so that if an accident occurs, you will know exactly what your child has ingested and can alert emergency services. Remove rubber tips from door stops or replace with one-piece doorstops; these small pieces can be pulled off and become choking hazards. Look for and remove all small objects that can be considered choking hazards. Keep houseplants out of reach. Some plants can be poisonous or cause your baby to become ill or choke. Know the types of plants in your home and their dangers. Set your water heater temperature to no higher than 125 degrees Fahrenheit; water that is hotter than that can cause bad burns. Your walking toddler will begin to climb. Climbing into the bathtub and turning on the water could result in drowning and/or burns. The door to the bathroom should remain closed or blocked with a baby gate at all times.
Window blinds are very common in homes around the country; injuries from such window blinds have been recorded in medical literature as early as 1945 and continue to occur today. There are an average of 647 injuries annually from window cords, some resulting in strangulation and death. Eliminate all window blinds with cords in the home (especially in a child’s room). Switch to cordless blinds or clip blind cords high up on the blind, away from where a child can reach them.
Taking just a few minutes to think through the safety of and potential hazards in your home, followed by an afternoon spent putting these modifications in place could save you a trip to the ER and keep your baby safe and protected in your home!
By Aimee E. Ketchum
