As kids are growing, they tend to explore the house more and more by crawling and touching everything they find attractive. This behavior results in injuries when the house is not child-proofed, and at times the injury may even be fatal.
According to KidsHealth.org, household injuries are one of the top three reasons why children under three are taken to the ER, and 70 percent of household injury-related deaths happen to kids under four.
In a study published in the Journal of Neurosurgery Pediatrics, it is reported that kids aged 1 to 3 often suffered from head and/or neck injuries caused by falling TVs. These injuries could be fatal.
"As a hazard in the home, it's the perfect storm," said the study's lead author, Dr. Michael Cusimano, as per Today. Cusimano is a professor of neurology, education and public health at the University of Toronto and a neurosurgeon at St. Michael's Hospital.
"Kids are left unsupervised around a big television that is not properly secured," he explained. "And the numbers are going up. Between 2006 and 2008 there were 16,500 injuries and between 2008 and 2010 there were 19,200. If you look at the sales of these TVs there's a parallel increase."
Dr. Cusimano and co-author Nadine Parker looked at 29 studies from seven countries, carefully reviewing TV-related head and neck injuries. They found that 84 percent of reported injuries happened at home, with three-fourths of them not witnessed by adult caregivers.
"TVs are often placed on unstable bases, placed on high furniture like dressers, which aren't designed for TVs, or not properly secured to the wall," said Dr. Cusimano in a press release via EurekAlert!. "Meanwhile, parents are getting busier and busier and don't have as much time to supervise children, so it's not surprising that these injuries are getting reported more often."
The researchers also found that kids 2 to 5 years old spend a significant amount of time on TV (more than 32 hours per week), which makes them more prone to these kinds of injuries.
"Parents have to be aware that TVs can seriously harm children," said Dr. Cusimano. "But these injuries are highly predictable and preventable."
Dr. Cusimano said that adults can help prevent TV-related injuries by: learning about its dangers; not putting toys or remotes on top of TV sets; placing TVs away from the edge of a stand; choosing the right kinds of support furniture and wall mounts used for TVs; properly anchoring TVs when they are not mounted on a wall; and setting boundaries or behavior parameters that limit the kids from playing near a TV.
