Baby Product Injuries on the Rise

Every eight minutes a child under three is injured by a baby product.  That number is on the rise in recent years and equates to approximately 66,000 injuries per year.  From 1991 through 2011 almost 1.5 million children were treated in emergency rooms for injuries sustained from baby products. 

The largest injury causer is falls and the biggest culprit – baby car seats.  Always make sure your baby is properly buckled into the seat to reduce fall risks.  It is also safer for baby carriers to be sat on lower surfaces so if they fall over there is less risk of injury to the baby.  Some products simply malfunction and others are improperly and/or unsafely designed.  Products are sometimes recalled but parents often don’t learn of the recalls.  You can check for recalls at recalls.gov and you can sign up there to receive alerts if your products are recalled.  A lot of products come with those small registration cards that are often discarded, but by filling them out and submitting them to the manufacturer the manufacturer will know to alert you of a recall on the product. 

The second largest culprit, as many may have guessed, is baby bedding.  Suffocation is of course a big reason, but cribs themselves can also cause injuries.  In 2011 safety standards for cribs were dramatically improved, so baby product experts recommend purchasing cribs manufactured after 2011.