DC Child Accident & Safety Blog

The information and advocacy outfit KidsHealth has issued a list of the top five illnesses parents should look out for during the school year, and how to address them. They are:

• 1. Pinkeye: Also known as conjunctivitis, pinkeye is very contagious when caused by viruses or bacteria. To prevent spreading it, kids should wash their hands often with warm water and soap; not touch their eyes; and avoid sharing eye drops, makeup, pillowcases, washcloths, and towels.


• 2. Strep Throat: It spreads through close contact, unwashed hands and airborne droplets from sneezing or coughing. Anyone can get strep throat, but it’s most common in school-age kids and teens. To prevent the spread of it: keep a sick child’s eating utensils separate and wash them in hot, soapy water or a dishwasher; the child shouldn’t share food, drinks, napkins or towels; teach kids to sneeze or cough into a shirtsleeve, not their hands.


• 3. Head Lice: The critters are common among kids 3-12 (affecting girls more often than boys), but anyone can get this infection. It’s not a sign of poor hygiene and lice do not spread disease. To prevent the spread of lice, discourage sharing combs, brushes, hats and helmets.


• 4. Molluscum Contagiosum: This skin rash is common among kids 1-12, yet many parents are not familiar with molluscum contagiosum. It spreads easily, most commonly through skin-to-skin contact, but kids can get it by touching objects bearing the virus such as toys, clothing, towels and bedding. To prevents the spread of the virus, wash hands frequently with soap and warm water and avoid sharing towels, clothing or other personal items.


• 5. Walking Pneumonia: The leading type of pneumonia in school-age kids and young adults spreads through person-to-person contact or breathing in airborne particles from sneezing or coughing. Walking pneumonia usually develops gradually and can be successfully treated with antibiotics. To prevent the spread, encourage kids to wash their hands thoroughly and frequently.





Posted by Patrick A. Malone | Permalink | Email This Post

Posted In: School Safety

The parental instinct to protect one's child is evolutionary. If something isn't safe, the parent's instinct is to remove the child from the danger, or otherwise minimize the threat.

That's a noble instinct, But is it always the best instinct? A recent story in the New York Times suggests that too much protection can stunt growth and inhibit an otherwise healthy desire to try new things and expand horizons.

Parental concern, government regulation, product safety guidelines and the fear of lawsuits have all contributed to the makeover of playgrounds from tall, creaky equipment resting on hard surfaces to kinder, gentler forms of outdoor apparatus. Shorter equipment sited on enclosed platforms underlain with absorbment material unquestionably prevents some injuries. But experts wonder at what cost.

“There is no clear evidence that playground safety measures have lowered the average risk on playgrounds,” said David Ball, a professor of risk management at Middlesex University in London. He noted that the risk of some injuries such as arm fractures increased after the introduction of softer surfaces on playgrounds in Britain and Australia.

“This sounds counterintuitive, but it shouldn’t ...,” Ball told The Times. “If children and parents believe they are in an environment which is safer than it actually is, they will take more risks.”

Playground equipment should be age-appropriate, of course--lower monkey bars will help develop a toddler's physical abilities. But they might impede an older child's psychological development or, because they're insufficiently challenging, encourage her to engage in play somewhere else--goofing around a high bridge over a river--that's too risky.

A study published in Evolutionary Psychology describes the value of risky play in encouraging children to confront their fears in order to overcome them. "[W]e may observe an increased neuroticism or psychopathology in society," the authors suggest, "if children are hindered from partaking in age adequate risky play."

Some researchers aren't convinced that children do suffer fewer physical injuries when their recreational corners are padded, but if so, they contend that such playgrounds may stunt emotional development and leave children anxious and fearful. Isn't that worse than a broken ankle?

As Ellen Sandseter, co-author of the Evolutionary Psychology study, told the New York Times, “I think monkey bars and tall slides are great. As playgrounds become more and more boring, these are some of the few features that still can give children thrilling experiences with heights and high speed.”

Sandseter identified six categories of risky play: exploring heights, experiencing high speed, handling dangerous tools, being near dangerous elements (water, fire), rough-and-tumble play (wrestling) and wandering alone away from adult supervision. The most common is climbing heights.

Children progressively raise their adventure bar, Sandseter, said. And that's the way they learn to accept and master challenge. When they fail, they get hurt, physically or emotionally. But as The Times' story reports, if parents and psychologists worry that a kid who suffers a bad fall will develop a fear of heights, studies have shown the opposite: A child younger than 9 who gets hurt in a fall is less likely as a teenager to have a fear of heights.

The gradual exposure to increasing danger is known as habituation. It's the same technique therapists use to help people overcome phobias. And it's hard-wired into our primordial brains: As The Times summarizes, "While a youthful zest for exploring heights might not seem adaptive — why would natural selection favor children who risk death before they have a chance to reproduce? — the dangers seemed to be outweighed by the benefits of conquering fear and developing a sense of mastery."

“Paradoxically,” the authors write in Evolutionary Psychology, “we posit that our fear of children being harmed by mostly harmless injuries may result in more fearful children and increased levels of psychopathology.”

So, parents, here's your long-term homework assignment. Try to understand that your instinct to keep the kids safe is normal and laudable, but it can overrun your child's need to take risks. You can't soften every blow, and--here's the take-home--you shouldn't try.

On the other hand, efforts to remove safety hazards from playgrounds are still important. When the issue is not just bumps and bruises, but head injury and serious harm, parents have a right to insist that playgrounds conform to safety standards.

The traditional family dream home -- a large house on a big lot in a quiet suburb -- may actually be more dangerous for children than many inner-city neighborhoods, according to a growing body of research.

Although many parents worry that city living could mean their children will be abducted or caught in the crossfire of a gang shooting, it is exceedingly rare for children to be harmed or murdered by strangers, says William Lucy, a University of Virginia urban planning professor who has led several studies on safe communities. The greatest risk to children, he notes, is car crashes, which are more likely to occur in the suburbs, where children spend more time in cars or playing next to busy roads. The ratio of traffic fatalities versus homicides by strangers is 13-1, he says.

All of Lucy's studies on this subject indicate that lower-density areas are the most dangerous, while the safest communities, for the most part, are high-density cities. Not only do low-density communities have more traffic fatalities, they also are the most dangerous places for stranger homicides.

Mass school shootings most often occur in the suburbs, where the student population is less diverse, making it harder for some to fit in. Unfortunately, he notes, car crashes and schoolyard bullies, both of which usually involve older children, are not things parents often think of when they are first looking for a safe place to raise their young families.

Source: National Post

Some child safety advocates in Florida are calling for special vehicle alarms following the death of a 2-year-old strapped and forgotten in her car seat for nearly 6 hours in the back of a Delray Beach daycare center van.

A few other states already have laws mandating that all vehicles from childcare providers that transport six or seven (depending on the state) or more passengers have a child safety alarm system that prompts the driver to inspect all seats before leaving. Mary Sachs, a state representative, said she will sponsor a bill next spring requiring the alarms in Florida.

The alarms work as follows: After the driver turns off the vehicle, an alarm goes off and continues to sound for one to four minutes, which forces the driver to walk to the back of the van to turn it off. If the driver ignores the alarm, an external car alarm sounds, thereby alerting others that the vehicle hasn’t been checked.

While no one keeps specific data on how many children die from being left in childcare center vehicles, dozens of children die after being left in cars every year. According to Jan Null, an adjunct professor of meterology at the University of San Francisco and author of “Hypothermia death of children in vehicles,” 49 children have died forgotten in cars so far this year.

The driver of the van was charged with negligent manslaughter and the owners of the day care lost their license after losing more than $200,000 in state funds following the incident.

Source: The Palm Beach Post

You'll find more information about deaths of children in vehicles from hypothermia here.

A soon-to-be-completed University of Alabama study of seat belts in school buses notes an increase in positive public perception concerning their installation and use, and growing acceptance among the students using them.

The study, which was commissioned by the state government after a school bus accident in Huntsville, Ala. killed four students and injured 30, assessed the impact of installing lap-shoulder seat belts on Alabama school buses. It includes a review of national experiences and trends, alterations needed in the buses if seat belt use is adopted, analysis of school bus crash data in the state, and a cost-benefit analysis. Detailed results will not be released until the study is completed later this year.

Federal law requires seat belts on small school buses (weighing less than 10,000 lbs.). However, larger buses, which make up about 80% of the nation’s school bus fleet, are governed by state, not federal, guidelines, and only a handful of states – California, Florida, Louisiana, New Jersey, New York and Texas – require seat belts in school buses. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Association, an average of 19 school-age children die in crashes involving school buses each year.

The school buses used in the study were outfitted with four ceiling-mounted video cameras allowing the research team to gather data on the level of restraint use, review the percentage of students using the belts and the percentage of students using the belts properly, and investigate if using the belts keeps students from moving into the aisle and out of the protective compartment provided by the seats. The camera data will also reveal the benefit of having a bus aide to monitor students and will monitor time devoted to buckling at each stop.

The study is the first to assess the benefits of installing seat belts in school buses, and officials from the National Transportation Safety Board, the National Highway Safety Administration and other national agencies are awaiting final results to determine whether or not the adoption of seat belts in school buses should be instituted across the U.S.

Source: Some of the information in this post came from here.

You’ll find more information about the University of Alabama schoolbus seat-belt study here.

Consumer Reports recently conducted a survey in rating the most durable backpacks, and found in the survey that an average 6th grader carries a backpack weighing 18.4 pounds, but some are as heavy as 30 pounds, according to Tara Parker-Pope of the New York Times.

A medical adviser to Consumer Reports and also a board-certified neurologist, Dr. Orly Avitzur says that carrying a heavy backpack can cause low-back pain in children, and carrying the backpack on one shoulder instead of two exacerbates the problem.

Parents can consult some suggestions provided by the American Academy of Pediatrics about how to choose the best-fitting backpack and how to prevent injuries. Consumer Reports has also published its full report and buying guide.

Some of the American Academy of Pediatrics' guidelines include the following:

- Always use both shoulder straps. Slinging a backpack over one shoulder can strain muscles. Wearing a backpack on one shoulder may increase curvature of the spine.

- Tighten the straps so that the pack is close to the body. The straps should hold the pack two inches above the waist.

- Pack light. The backpack should never weigh more than 10 to 20 percent of the student's total body weight.

- Organize the backpack to use all of its compartments. Pack heavier items closest to the center of the back.

- Stop often at school lockers, if possible. Do not carry all of the books needed for the day.

- Bend using both knees, when you bend down. Do not bend over at the waist when wearing or lifting a heavy backpack.

- Learn back-strengthening exercises to build up the muscles used to carry a backpack.

- Ask your pediatrician for advice.

Before Kari Christiansen retained a lawyer and threatened to sue the primary school her diabetic son attends, Carter Christiansen, a second-grader, could not bring his medical supplies to school and once fell unconscious in the school hallway. In another school district, 17-year-old Jennifer Schwartz had her insulin pump snatched away – when the needle and tubing were still inserted in her body – by an unwitting teacher who thought the beeping device was a cell phone.

In a Chicago Tribune article, Carolyn Starks reports the difficulties that many diabetic schoolchildren face in managing their disease in schools. Parents are fighting for accommodations and policy changes to help young children with diabetes, which affects one in every 500 people under age 20, according to the article.

In many school districts, glucometers and other supplies that diabetic children need to use several times throughout the day are banned from school zones, or, in cases where they are allowed in schools, have to be locked away in nurses' cabinets. The needles in these devices, which are the smallest needles in the world – are thought to be dangerous.

To help diabetic students manage the disease at school, physicians and lawyers have joined force with parents to make these children’s need known. Dr. Patrick Zeller, endocrinologist, and Ed Kraus, associate professor at Chicago-Kent School of Law, are among such advocates for diabetic children.

Parents should feel comfortable about communicating to teachers and other school workers about their children’s needs. Dr. Zeller said that schools “want to do a good job” and that they are willing to help the students when they are educated about the disease. Jean Sophie, the new superintendent in Carter Christiansen’s school district, was eager to accommodate the Christiansens’ requests because she personally knows children who are diabetic. Teachers will likely be willing to make special arrangements, if notified by parents of diabetic students, such as allowing the kids to bring snacks into classroom in case of low blood sugar.

A leading sports injury expert says that cheerleading has become one of the riskiest sports for women. Lifelong pain and disability, paralysis and even death are becoming more common consequences of participation in cheerleading.

The expert, Frederick Mueller, points out that most people still think of cheerleaders as mere pompom-waving eye candy and do not realize that cheerleading can involve dangerous gymnastic exercises. Because of this, schools often will not label cheerleading as a sport and choose to class it with non-athletic activities like working on the newspaper or acting in a play. This labeling contributes to the dangers of cheerleading:

The main problem, critics say, is that cheerleading in most states is not considered a sport; it's an "activity" such as chess club and debating. As a result, it is not required to follow uniform safety regulations, such as mandating off-seasons, routine physicals and soft surfaces that would minimize injuries. Coaches are not required to undergo standardized training.

There are obvious ways to minimize this risk. The coaches and administrators of cheerleading organizations quoted in the article point out that approaching cheerleading with the same care schools use in recruiting and training coaches for sports like basketball and football would make the sport much safe. For instance:

Several organizations also offer training programs for coaches, including how to minimize risks, teach stunts properly and respond to medical emergencies.

Among those organizations are the American Association of Cheerleading Coaches and Administrators and the National Federation of State High School Associations.

If your child is or wants to get involved in cheerleading, it is a good idea to talk to the coach first and see what kind of training he or she has had. It would also be wise to ask about safety measures the coach plans to implement to protect the cheerleaders.

Tara Parker-Pope discusses a new Yale School of Medicine review of research on bullying from 13 different countries, published in the International Journal of Adolescent Medicine and Health.

The review came up with a new finding: there is a link between being a bully and being suicidal. It was previously known that the victims of bullies had a higher risk of suicide than others, but now it seems that the tormentors are also at risk.

From the article:

Compared to other kids, a child who bullies may be at two to nine times higher risk for suicide, according to the study. Girl bullies appear to be at highest risk. Some researchers have also found a “dose-response” relationship, showing that those who bully more frequently are at highest risk for suicide.

While the studies showed an association with bullying and suicide, it wasn’t clear whether the behavior actually increases risk for suicide or whether kids already at risk for suicide are more likely to become bullies or their victims. The researchers noted that most of the studies failed to take into account the influence of factors like gender, psychiatric problems and a history of suicide attempts.

Please read the full article and the comments section, which is full of people who have been bullied discussing how they were brushed off by parents and teachers and other authority figures as over-sensitive or cowardly. Many of the comments are interesting and insightful in their analysis of what bullying does to children's mental health.