New CDC Report on Child Safety and Injuries

By Bryan Slaughter on January 6, 2009 8:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The CDC has released a report on child injuries which is fascinating and very instructive. I'll write on this in greater detail over the next few weeks, but I highly recommend that parents take a look at the report for themselves. One very sobering statistic - every day in the United States, 20 children die as a result of preventable injuries. This is higher than the number of deaths from all childhood diseases combined. Go to the next page for other highlights.

Other highlights of the report:

The majority of deaths were from five causes: falls, being struck by or against an object, overexertion, motor vehicle deaths, and animal bites or insect stings.

Falls were the leading cause of non-fatal injuries, accounting for approximately 2.8 million emergency room visits (one of whom was our son Michael when he was 14 months old - but he's got the walking thing down now).

Leading causes of fatal injuries per age group - suffocation was the cause of two-thirds of deaths for children under 1 year of age, drowning was the major cause for children 1-4, and for 5-19 year olds, the leading cause was being an occupant in a motor vehicle crash.

I always preach that the three greatest dangers for parents are cars, water and burn injuries. I will now add falls to that list. We as parents cannot prevent all the bumps and bruises of childhood, but these are the areas where we need to be especially vigilant for our children's safety.