Home: The Most Vulnerable Place For Children To Get Injured

By Dr. Ravi Himaja

It would come as a surprise to anyone that one's home, considered a safe place for children compared to the roads and playgrounds, is the most common place where several minor and sometimes major life-threatening injuries can occur. Around 90% of all children with injuries who attend the emergency room (ER) at Rainbow Children's Hospital have sustained some form of injury at home! Almost all these injuries can be prevented. Prevention requires supervising children carefully and keeping them away from dangers, such as cooking fires, water sources, places where they can fall, roads, and items that can poison, choke or hurt them.

Let's discuss the pattern of injuries and the simple ways to prevent such accidents which can sometimes cause permanent disability or even death. 

1. Cuts and Bruises Scratches and cuts usually occur when children bump into or fall on sharp edges or when they are careless while using sharp objects like knives or scissors. This can cause bleeding and can leave a permanent scar.

Prevention: Keep floors dry and cover sharp edges whenever possible. 

2. Finger Crush Injuries Fingers can get crushed due to doors being shut suddenly over them, especially on a windy day. This can cause minor contusion, laceration, injury to tendons of the finger, or even finger amputation requiring reconstructive surgery.

Prevention: Place door stoppers or at least place a towel over the door top to prevent sudden complete closure of the door. 

3. Burns Burning and scalding are among the most common causes of serious injury among young children. Burns often cause permanent scarring, and some are fatal. Burns over various parts of the body can be caused due to fall of boiling water (in bathrooms and during steam inhalation), boiling milk, oil or hot liquids (in the kitchen).

Prevention: Always be conscious about the child coming near hot liquids especially in kitchens and never leave young children alone in the bathroom.

4. Heavy Objects Falling TVs are placed over unstable TV stands or over a shelf, where the child tries to change channels or play with the stand and the object falls over the child. Major head, chest, and abdominal injuries are seen and some children underwent major surgeries for internal organ injury.

Prevention: Have a firm stable stand or table. The ideal would be a wall-mounted TV.

5. Corrosive Injuries Injuries are due to accidental ingestion of acids (battery fluids) or alkalis (bathroom cleaners). This causes severe internal burns in the food pipe and stomach and may require major reconstructive surgeries to correct the damage.

Prevention: Keep such fluids out of reach of children and do not store these fluids in water bottles which is commonly mistaken for water and quickly ingested.

6. Fall From Height Many children are brought to the emergency room with serious head injuries after falling from various floors generally while leaning from the balcony. Children sometimes climb over the railings, lose their balance, and fall head down several floors.

Prevention: Consider increasing the height of the railings in the balcony when small children are around. Unsupervised play in the balcony or roof should be avoided.

7. Swallowing Medicines Inadvertent swallowing of medications meant for adults have caused disastrous consequences for many children.

Prevention: Keep all medications away from kids in a safe inaccessible place. 

8. Foreign Body Aspiration / Ingestion Aspiration Children can swallow, inhale or choke on items such as small toys, peanuts and marbles. It is most commonly seen in children between one and three years of age. Emergency endoscopy (bronchoscopy) may be required To remove the object from the windpipe. The most dangerous object which requires immediate removal from the food pipe within hours is a button cell (battery). These cells damage the wall of the food pipe within hours and cause major anatomical damage internally.

Prevention: Keep the floors / tables / bed free of all small objects. Small foods such as grapes, cherry tomatoes, blackberries, and other soft fruits should be cut into quarters to prevent choking.

9. Stings and bites Most often dog and animal bites are not life-threatening. Often children are bitten by animals that they familiar with, although strays are also known to attack in some instances. Stings by bees, spiders, or snakes can be fatal.

Prevention: Keep kids away from stray dogs. Keep them  and even pets when they are susceptible to being aggressive like while feeding or sleeping.

Dr. Ravi Himaja MCH, 

Consultant Pediatric Surgery

Rainbow Children's Hospital, Visakhapatnam

This article was published in association with Rainbow Children’s Hospital.