The Importance of Child Safety at Home
In this session, we will learn about the importance of child safety at home.
Child safety at home includes not only physical safety but also psychological and emotional safety, with no risk of dangerous situations or accidents to children in a home environment.
In order to understand the types of safety accidents of children, let's first look at the developmental characteristics according to age. Usually, at the age of three months, you can struggle and roll, and at the age of about six months, you can sit up alone. When you're nine months old, you finally start crawling or waddling.
From this point on, they try to grab things with their hands and take them to their mouths. Walking (1-3 years old) is a time when the range of activities expands with a vigorous curiosity about the surroundings or objects, and safety accidents often occur because the sense of balance and physical agility are not complete yet.
For example, accidents such as putting things in your mouth, falling while walking, or rolling down a bed or stairs occur. Many safety accidents have been reported in boys (61.1%) compared to girls (38.7% as of 2019).
According to the 2019 death statistics of the National Statistical Office in Korea, 167 (9.6%) of 1,747 deaths under the age of 14 were caused by safety accidents such as falls, drowning, and transportation accidents. The number of child safety accident deaths is on the decline, but the proportion of child safety accidents among all safety accidents was high at 34%, especially 67.8% at home, so attention should be paid to child safety accidents at home.
By type of accident, there were many cases of hitting or falling against bedroom furniture or living room furniture, falling from flooring, sliding or falling on playground facilities or bicycles, sliding or crashing on stairs, putting toys in nose, swallowing, or falling on kickboards. Of these, slipping and falling accounted for the largest portion of the total, with more than half of the damage to the skin and subcutaneous tissue. From 2017 to 2019, there were about 2,000 safety accidents related to toys (toys) every year among child safety accidents at home, of which the most occurred between the ages of 3 and 8 years old. Swallowing and inserting incidents of beads, blocks and assembly toys were reported at 35% and falls on slides at 9%.
health effects
Slip, fall, bump.
From 2015 to 2019, slipping, falling, and bumping are the most common types of safety accidents except for infancy, and more than 10,000 cases have been reported every year. It was the most common in the early stages (51.1%), followed by infancy (24.9%), school age (20.1%), and in boys (65.3%) than girls (34.7%).
Fall down.
Depending on its height and mechanism, falls can cause damage ranging from simple scratches to death. Common aspects of falls in children include falling from a bed or chair, falling from rides such as slides, and falling from an apartment veranda or window. If you fall, you can cause serious damage such as fractures and lacerations, and as you get older, the degree of damage tends to get worse. Children's falls at home decrease with age. However, it is serious that it causes head and spinal cord damage relatively often compared to the height of the drop. Head and spine damage is more frequent, especially in preschoolers living in the home. On the other hand, school-age children (7-14 years old) who have developed a defense mechanism against danger often suffer fractures to their arms and legs in the case of falls.
burn
Incidents such as burns due to high-temperature substances at home were mainly caused by kitchen appliances (39.5%), beauty and household appliances (14.7%), tableware, plates, and cups (12.6%), in the early stages (59.3%), infants (10.8%), and school age (10.0%). Children are often caused by hot water burns such as hot water, ramen soup, cooking oil, and steam. In adults, exposure to 53 degrees Celsius hot water for about 60 seconds causes third-degree burns, but in children, third-degree burns are more dangerous for children because they can only get third-degree burns in 15 to 30 seconds.
Foreign substance swallowing, aspiration
The number of accidents in which children swallowed or inhaled foreign substances decreased to 1,659 in 2015, 1,293 in 2016, 1,498 in 2017, 1,548 in 2018, and 1,915 in 2019. Walking (1-3 years old) accounts for 60.5% of the total, followed by infancy (23.2%), school age (9.1%), and infancy (7.2%). Swallowing small toys, parts, coins, beans out of curiosity can cause serious complications such as perforation or bleeding in the digestive system, including the esophagus and stomach, leading to death. In addition, more and more people drink household chemicals such as sanitizers, air fresheners, and moisture remover, or experience damage due to eye and skin contact.
Prevention and response
The guardian needs to know the types of safety accidents that can occur at home and regularly educate children on preventive measures.
Slip, fall, bump.
Since children before infancy are not fully developed, efforts should be made to prevent safety accidents by using shock-relieving devices such as floor anti-slip mats and furniture corner guards. Place a children's footrest or toilet seat in the bathroom and use anti-slip slippers. Educate children not to run in the bathroom or hang from the sink, and not to spray water or soap bubbles on the bathroom floor. Remove water from the bathroom floor after checking frequently.
It is helpful to ice pack or compress the wound, or lift it slightly higher. If severe pain or joint movement is different from usual, you should visit a hospital because there is a possibility of dislocation or fracture. If there is bleeding, completely cover the wound with disinfectant gauze or a clean cloth, and press with your fingers or palms to stop bleeding. However, in the case of eye damage, foreign substances are seen in the wound, or skull fractures, direct pressure may cause more severe damage, so be careful. If the wound is contaminated, stop bleeding for more than 10 minutes, and wash the wound clean under running tap water after the bleeding stops.
fall
Most of the crashes in the home are related to furniture. Any furniture of height, such as a bed, chair, desk, sofa, etc., can cause damage. There is a risk of falling, especially at an age when you can climb or jump on furniture. In fact, bedroom furniture (35.3%), living room furniture (11.3%), and baby furniture (9.6%) were the main causes of the crash. In foreign countries, safety standards for children's products are set and strictly observed. Recently, there are more children's beds and furniture with safety devices in Korea. It is necessary to prevent falls through shock relief, such as installing safety guards on beds or placing mats on the floor.
Falling varies depending on age, height, and place of occurrence Even minor falls in the home can cause damage ranging from bruising to brain damage. In infants and toddlers, if there is a shock to the head, you should observe it closely for at least 24 to 48 hours, and if you feel pain or discomfort for no reason, you should immediately visit a hospital to check for unidentified damage. If there is damage to the brain, lungs, and abdominal organs, symptoms may not appear in the early stages, so you should observe them carefully.
Burn
In infants and young children, you may not be able to quickly pull your hands back when you come into contact with high-temperature products, which can cause severe burns. In the case of burns, the best precaution is to prevent exposure to environments that can be a risk factor. More household items such as electric rice cookers, irons, and water purifiers are equipped with safety devices, and various precautions are being applied, ranging from alarms to locks.
Electric pressure rice cookers, gas stoves, water purifiers, heating equipment, irons, etc. must be kept out of reach of children. Do not eat hot food such as ramen or coffee while holding your child. Place a pot with hot soup on the floor of the bathroom or veranda and do not cool it. Be careful when using an instantaneous water heater, and prevent accidents by informing you of the risk of burns of high-temperature products.
In case of burns, it is recommended to cool it with tap water or saline water immediately. If you get burned at home, cool down the burn area for about 20 minutes with running tap water. However, if the burn area is wide, it can lead to hypothermia, so do not soak the entire body but spray it evenly to cool the burn area. Do not forcefully peel off clothes wet with hot water, but remove them with scissors to reduce the time of contact with heat to prevent the damage from getting worse. Metal accessories (rings, bracelets, etc.) continue to have heat, which deepens the burn or interferes with blood circulation due to edema in the burn area, so cool the burn area and remove it as soon as possible. You should go to the hospital immediately after wrapping the burn with a clean cloth or bandage so that it is not too tight. If you burn more than 2 degrees and are damaged more than 5% of the total area of your body, you can also be treated at a burn center considering the area and cause of the burn.
The most important thing in burn treatment is to disinfect the wound cleanly to prevent infection. Often, folk remedies such as soju or sesame oil are given, which is a wrong way to increase the risk of infection. Also, medicines such as burn ointment and scar ointment should be used after accurately checking the degree and condition of the burn.
Swallowing, aspiration of foreign substances
It appears at a high frequency between the ages of 1 and 3. In this age group, the front teeth grow before the molars, so once you bite a foreign object with your mouth, you can't break it and swallow it as it is. This age is not used to swallowing food, and the muscles and reflexes that can protect the airway are not well developed. So if foreign substances pass into the airways, there is a high risk of suffocation. Therefore, do not place small objects around children. Also, you should check the recommended age range when purchasing toys. Make sure that household chemicals are child-protected and keep them out of reach of children after use. If stored in a low cabinet, the cabinet must be locked. Usually, children are taught that toilets and laundry rooms are not play areas.
When foreign substances are inhaled, there are no specific symptoms, so they are often not found until symptoms such as runny nose, bleeding, or abdominal pain appear. Once foreign substances pass up the esophagus, most of them are naturally excreted through the feces. However, when foreign substances such as coins get caught in the esophagus, they should be removed quickly. Most foreign substances can be easily removed when they are visible, but it is difficult to remove them because they are not used to being done by a guardian at home and are embarrassed. If the foreign object is round like a ball, it is not easy to hold and can fall behind the neck. At this time, there is a risk of suffocation, so you should visit the hospital quickly to remove it.
There are some foreign substances that need to be removed immediately by visiting the hospital. Batteries in toys or electronic devices (mercury batteries), commonly referred to as button batteries, are one of the most dangerous foreign substances, including heavy metals such as mercury and lithium. These ingredients can cause ulcers or perforations in the esophagus or stomach, so they should be removed through endoscopy within 8 to 12 hours. Foreign substances with sharp or pointed shapes should also be removed immediately as there is a risk of esophageal perforation. Even if foreign substances are inserted into the nose or ears, they should be removed immediately after detection. In particular, nuts such as peanuts in the nose cause an inflammatory reaction within hours and are at risk of suffocation. If more than one magnet is swallowed, it should be removed immediately because the magnets can pull together and cause necrosis or perforation of the intestine.
When swallowing or sucking household chemicals, do not force them to vomit. Puke can be aspirated or esophageal damage can occur when forced to vomit can occur. Rinse your mouth and face thoroughly and visit the emergency room quickly. At this time, let the doctor know the ingredients and amount of the product swallowed by the child. If you are in your eyes, do not rub your eyes as much as possible, wash them with running water, and visit the emergency room. If there is adhesive on the skin, do not remove it excessively, but remove it with lukewarm water and soap.
In this session, we will learn about the importance of child safety at home.
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