Every eight minutes, a young child is treated in an emergency department for injuries related to nursery products, which amounts to approximately 66,000 such injuries annually in the U.S., according to a new study published in the journal Pediatrics.
For the study, researchers examined data from the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System for children younger than three years old who were injured by a nursery item from 1991 through 2011. Analysis revealed the annual nursery product injury rate decreased by 33.9 percent from 1991 to 2003, which researchers attributed to improvements in baby walker safety. However, the decline was followed by a 23.7 percent increase from 2003 to 2011.
Injuries were most commonly associated with baby carriers, which were linked to approximately 20 percent of the injuries. Cribs (19 percent) and strollers (17 percent) were also commonly linked with injuries.
"We have achieved great success in preventing baby walker-related injuries by improving the design of the product and instituting better safety standards," said Gary Smith, MD, senior author of the study and director of the Center for Injury Research and Policy at Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio. "We now need to aggressively apply this approach to other nursery products. It is unacceptable that we are still seeing so many injuries to young children from these products."
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