Please read and follow these rules which apply to all pages:

• Walk, do not run, when around swimming pools or on docks.
• NEVER PUSH another person into a pool or hold a person under the water.
• NEVER SWIM ALONE.
• Do not cry for help unless there is an emergency.
• NEVER dive headfirst into water unless you know it is deep enough. When in doubt go feet first.
• Always use a life vest when boating, fishing, inner-tubing or playing in a river or stream.
• NEVER try to seim , float, or boat over a dam, and get back into the water well below the current.
• DO NOT SWIM around boats or other watercraft with propellers.
• Children should not use blow-up toys or mattresses unsupervised in a pool or anywhere where there is water.

Swimming pools are the biggest drowning threat to preschoolers, because of improper supervision. NEVER leave a small child alone or near a private or public pool.

For owners of pools:

• Install a four-sided fence that is five to six feet high that seperates the house from the pool area. Make sure the gates are self-locking with a latch 56 inches above the ground. Use a Lock and Key.
• Place the following poolside:

1. Telephone and phone numbers for emergency services (911).
2. Instructions for CPR.
3. Shepherd's hook, rescue tube, and rope.

• Keep tricycles, wagons, balls, and any other toys away from the pool.
• Put away after use the following: wading pools, buckets, and coolers.
• Stretch the pool cover over the entire surface of the pool and fasten cover securely and correctly.
• Make sure that rain water, sprinklers, or snow (which melts) accumulate on the cover. Children can drown in a few inches of water.

BOATING BASICS:

• Every person on board a boat, no matter what kind of boat is being used should wear a properly fitted life vest at all times.
• The life vest should be approved by the U.S.Coast Guard. Put children under the age of 5 in a vest with a flotation collar.
• Make sure the straps and buckles are fastened tightly to prevent vest from slipping over your head.
• The following should NEVER be used as flotation devices: water wings, ring-shaped toys, rafts and air mattresses.

Corrosive Chemicals: The following chemicals can cause burns in throat, stomach, around the mouth and lips: drain openers, toilet bowl cleaners, dishwashing-machine detergents, and rust removers.

Toiletries: Nail-glue removers are the most dangerous product a child can get their hands on. It contains acetonitrile, which when swallowed turns into cyanide! This poison will deprive the body of oxygen; shutting down the brain and heart. Nail primers can burn the mouth, lips, and tongue. Mouthwash is another hazard which contains alcohol. The effects of alcohol are damaging; causes slowed breathing and heart rate, seizures, and coma. When these items are not being used, put away and out of reach of children. Mouthwash companys do have child-proof lids.

PLANTS: Just a nibble of a poisonous plant can cause the tongue to swell preventing the child from breathing. Know the types of plants in your house and if any are poisonous put those plants out of reach for kids under 4.

AUTOMOTIVE FLUIDS: Even a small amount of antifreeze or windshield washer fluid can cause harm or death. When ingesting antifreeze it will damage the kidneys and nervous system; windshield washer fluid will cause blindness and nerve damage. Put away these fluids as soon as you are finished using them. If you suspect a child has swallowed one of these, do not wait for symptoms; take to the ER!

Child Safety Seats: Rear-face Until at Least One Year by Kathleen Weber, Director Child Passenger Protection Research Program, University of Michigan Medical School

Common Misunderstanding

There are many misunderstandings and misconceptions about the crash environment that lead even the best-intentioned parent or pediatrician to believe a child is "safe" facing forward when s/he is still very young. These come from obsolete ideas and advice that may still appear in older pamphlets and pediatric literature but that have been updated in recent years.

The most prevalent misunderstanding is the idea that muscle strength and control have anything to do with whether it is reasonable to face a child forward and subject his/her neck to the extreme forces pulling the head away from the body in a frontal crash.

Crash Dynamics

This will be a somewhat technical explanation, but it is an important concept to understand. When a car hits something else at, say, 25 to 30 mph, it will come to a stop at a deceleration rate of about 20 or 25 G. But, due to the time lag between when the vehicle stops and the occupants eventually do, the head of a forward-facing adult or child may experience as much as 60 or 70 G.

Physiological Impact

Even strong neck muscles of military volunteers cannot make a difference in such an environment. Rather it is the rigidity of the BONES in the neck, in combination with the connecting ligaments, that determines whether the spine will hold together and the spinal cord will remain intact within the confines of the vertebral column.

This works for adults, but very young children have immature and incompletely ossified bones that are soft and will deform and/or separate under tension, leaving the spinal cord as the last link between the head and the torso. Have you ever pulled an electric cord from the socket by the cord instead of the plug and broken the wires? Same problem.

This scenario is based on actual physiological measures. According to Huelke et al [1], "In autopsy specimens the elastic infantile vertebral bodies and ligaments allow for column elongation of up to two inches, but the spinal cord ruptures if stretched more than 1/4 inch." Real accident experience has also shown that a young child's skull can be literally ripped from its spine by the force of a crash. Yes, the body is being held in place, but the head is not. Is it a statistically rare event? Yes. If it's my child, does it matter that it's rare?

Facing Directions

When a child is facing rearward, the head is cradled and moves in unison with the body, so that there is little or no relative motion that might pull on the connecting neck.

Another aspect of the facing-direction issue that is often overlooked is the additional benefit a child gains in a side impact. Crash testing and field experience have both shown that the head of a child facing rearward is captured by the child restraint shell in side and frontal-oblique crashes, while that of a forward-facing child is thrown forward, around, and often outside the confines of the side wings. This can make the difference between a serious or fatal head injury and not.

Turn-Around Time

There are no magical or visible signals to tell us, parents, or pediatricians when the risk of facing forward in a crash is sufficiently low to warrant the change, and, when a parent drives around for months or years without a serious crash, the positive feedback that the system they have chosen "works" is very difficult to overcome. When in doubt, however, it's always better to keep the child facing rearward.

In the research and accident review I did a few years ago [2], the data seemed to break at about 12 months between severe consequences and more moderate consequences for the admittedly rare events of injury to young children facing forward that we were able to identify. One year old is also a nice benchmark, and the shift to that benchmark in the last few years has kept many kids in a safer environment longer and has probably saved some lives, some kids from paralysis, and some parents from terrible grief.

Leg Length

As a side comment, some convertible child restraints indicate in their instructions that a child should face forward when his/her feet touch the vehicle seatback, or alternately when the legs must be bent. This prohibition is not justified by any accident experience or any laboratory evidence, and we are hoping that these instructions will soon be revised. The only physical limit on rear-facing use is when the child's head approaches the top of the restraint shell. At this point, she/he should be moved to a rear-facing convertible restraint, or, if the child is already using one, to its forward-facing configuration.

Parents and pediatricians need to know the real reasons for the current push to keep babies rear facing to at least 1 year of age, in order to be able to make an informed judgment. Perhaps this will help spread the word.

1. Huelke DF et al. Car crashes and non-head impact cervical spine injuries in infants and children. Society of Automotive Engineers, Warrendale, PA, 1992. SAE 920562.

2. Weber K et al. Investigation of dummy response and restraint configuration factors associated with upper spinal cord injury in a forward-facing child restraint. In Child Occupant Protection, SP-986. Society of Automotive Engineers, Warrendale, PA, 1993. SAE 933101.

[HOME][GAMES][USEFUL SITES][RECIPES][SAFTEY][DEVELOPMENT]

This page hosted by Get your own Free Home Page