All Blog Posts (9)

Celebrate Safely This Holiday Season

We all want this season to be perfect, whether it’s the holiday feast, decorations or gifts for the kids. While candles, Christmas trees and other decorations are part of the holiday spirit, they can pose hazards, especially to children. Did you know? 464 toy-related injuries are treated in hospital emergency rooms in children 14 and under each day 270 children 14 and under are injured due to unintentional fires and burns each day 1 in 2 CO poisoning… Continue

Added by Vivi Cassella on December 3, 2009 at 1:36pm — No Comments

Glass-table injuries to children prompts industry changes

By Amir Kimia, MD Earlier this year, Children's Hospital Boston's Division of Emergency Medicine published a study in Pediatric Emergency Care that examined glass-table injuries to children. We conducted a review in collaboration with Consumers Union, the nonprofit publisher of Consumer Reports, which found that glass-table injuries to children were alarmingly higher than previously thought, and that there is a consensus among ED physicians that many of these injuries would have been avoided if… Continue

Added by Children's Hospital Boston on October 5, 2009 at 2:02pm — No Comments

Top Five Safety Mistakes New Parents Should Avoid

From the moment you left the hospital, you’ve been taking steps to keep your baby safer. But are there things you’re overlooking while running around trying to do everything else? Babies don’t understand the dangers around them. They can easily get injured because they’re small and don’t have the same physical coordination and cognitive abilities you have. The risks that your baby faces go far beyond a bruise or a skinned knee. Parents are often surprised by something their babies do they thoug… Continue

Added by Vivi Cassella on September 21, 2009 at 10:00am — No Comments

Why Parents Need to Teach Young Kids about Fire Safety

The scary truth is, the smallest kids are at the biggest risk to be injured or killed by fire and burns. A young child’s development makes escaping a fire much more difficult and injuries from burns more severe because: • Young children can’t perceive danger as well as older children. • Children can’t react quickly to a fire and often don’t know what to do in an emergency. • They have thinner skin than adults and burn mor… Continue

Added by Suzanne Morton on September 17, 2009 at 12:34pm — No Comments

Active Supervision, the Unsung Hero

Ask 100 parents if they supervise their kids, and I bet every last one will say they do. Unfortunately, as someone who works in public health, my lie detector would start beeping immediately. I know better. It’s not that parents don’t love their kids or even do a reasonably good job watching them; it’s that many don’t really know what it means to actively supervise a child, particularly when it comes to bath tubs, backyard pools and hot tubs, and open bodies of water. It’s simple: Active su… Continue

Added by Lindsay Bartholf on September 8, 2009 at 1:29pm — No Comments

Stop These Tragedies

There are good days and there are bad days in everyone’s life. Last week I was tired and my three-hour long commute to and from work wasn’t helping. I stopped to think about what really constitutes a bad day, and after thinking about all the stories below, I realized that while traffic is frustrating and a busy week can be exhausting, it’s really nothing in comparison to what these families are going through. • On Wednesday, there were… Continue

Added by Vivi Cassella on September 2, 2009 at 4:00pm — No Comments

This week a little girl in Florida was trapped in a pool drain(skimmer). Don't let this happen to your kids!

Fortunately this story had a happy ending. The girl was rescued, but that is not always the case. Make sure that you know how to keep your kids and your community safe.

Be Safe

… Continue

Added by Line Storgaard-Conley on August 26, 2009 at 11:00am — No Comments

This is why I work at Safe Kids...

During my first week at Safe Kids, I came across a statement by Surgeon General C. Everett Koop in 1989 that sums up why I work for Safe Kids: “If some infectious disease came along that affected children in the proportion that injuries do, there would be a huge public outcry and we would be told to spare no expense to find a cure and to be quick about it”. Did you know that unintentional injuries are the number ONE cause of death and disability for kids under 14 in the United States? I’m not t… Continue

Added by Vivi Cassella on August 18, 2009 at 12:07pm — No Comments

My Raison d'Blog

So here I am at 25 years old, working for a nonprofit in Washington, DC called Safe Kids USA. You could say our mission is to keep kids out of the emergency room, where too many wind up from preventable injuries. My job, more specifically, is geared towards keeping children safe while at play--so I specialize in bicycle safety, water safety and sport safety. I never would've imagined that I'd be doing this kind of work--child safety--but I think that is because I (like most) used to overlook, u… Continue

Added by Lindsay Bartholf on August 7, 2009 at 12:00pm — No Comments