Preventing the ouches
Local pediatrician gives ways to prevent childhood injuriesBy GARRETT NEESE, DMG Writer
Article Photos
HOUGHTON - For a lot of reasons, children are more suspectible to getting hurt than adults. But there are still steps that can be taken to prevent injuries.
Sarah Campbell, a pediatrician with Portage Health, said she sees children with a wide range of accidents, including bicycle and water accidents and accidental ingestions.
"You can see accidental burns, cuts, lacerations, car accidents, Fourth of July you can see burns from firecrackers, those types of things," she said.
Injuries are the top cause of death for people ages 12 to 21, Campbell said. Within that age range, motor-vehicle accidents lead to the most deaths, followed by drowning.
She recommended a few common-sense approaches to the most common problems:
To prevent injury while riding a bicycle, wear a bike helmet.
Young children should be placed in car seats. Under state law, they cannot graduate to adult seat belts until they are eight years old or at least 4 feet, 9 inches tall.
"But it should really be beyond that," Campbell said.
Teach your children how to swim, and be sure to wear life preservers while on a watercraft. Parents should also know basic first aid and CPR.
If young children are in your home, all firearms should be stored without ammunition in a place with a lock.
Because their bodies are still maturing, children can be at greater risk for injury, Campbell said.
"A baby can't get out of a hot tub," she said. "They physically can't developmentally do that, so they depend more on somebody making sure their surroundings are safe."
The same thing is true cognitively, as children can get painful hands-on lessons about their surroundings that adults have already taken to heart.
"Obviously, children can be in situations that they're not physically or mentally prepared to deal with," Campbell said. "A child doesn't know that a pan is hot, where an adult would know that."
At the Kestner Waterfront Park in Houghton Tuesday, Kendra Anderson of Hancock was keeping a watchful eye on her children - Jacie, 4, Riley, 3, and Bria, 18 months - as they played on the swing set.
Anderson said she takes a number of precautions with her children, including making them wear bike helmets.
"I always put them in my stroller when we go for walks," she said.
Garrett Neese can be reached at gneese@mininggazette.com
