Lost in a gleeful moment surrounded by rubber duckies, perfume-free soapsuds and the sweet giggles of a child, no parent wants to imagine the worst. But the bathroom can be a terrible place for young children if a caretaker takes even a quick moment to do something else.
January marks National Bath Safety Month, but, obviously, this is a year-round issue. Why? “More children actually die in bathtubs than accidental shootings in the U.S.,” asserts Jonas Sickler, a spokesman for watchdog site ConsumerSafety.org.
It’s a chilling statement. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics reports drowning overall is the leading cause of unintentional injury death in children 1 to 4 years old (7,543), outranking accidental shootings, poisonings, falls, and smoke/fire exposures combined (4,590), according to an examination of data from 1999-2015 data. Annually, an average 37 toddlers drowned in the tub, while 18 were victims to accidental firearm discharges.
“You have to understand that in a blink anything can happen,” cautions Jack Maypole, a primary care pediatrician and director of the Comprehensive Care Program at Boston Medical Center.
[Read the rest on The Washington Post]
KAITLYN WELLS 