For Toddlers Greatest Risk Are Household Cleaning Sprays

For Toddlers Greatest Risk Are Household Cleaning Sprays.
The bevy of injuries to green children caused by exposure to household cleaning products have decreased almost by half since 1990, but awkwardly 12000 children under the age of 6 are still being treated in US difficulty rooms every year for these types of accidental poisonings, a new study finds. Bleach was the cleaning artifact most commonly associated with injury (37,1 percent), and the most common type of storage container labyrinthine was a spray bottle (40,1 percent). In fact, although rates of injuries from bottles with caps and other types of containers decreased during the writing-room period, spray bottle injury rates remained constant, the researchers reported.

So "Many household products are sold in aerosol bottles these days, because for cleaning purposes they're extraordinarily easy to use," said study writer Lara B McKenzie, a principal investigator at Nationwide Children's Hospital's Center for Injury Research and Policy. "But vaporizer bottles don't generally come with child-resistant closures, so it's categorically easy for a child to just squeeze the trigger".

McKenzie added that young kids are often attracted to a cleaning product's cute label and colorful liquid, and may mistake it for juice or vitamin water. "If you seem at a lot of household cleaners in bottles these days, it's actually pretty easy to bad move them for sports drinks if you can't read the labels," added McKenzie, who is also assistant professor of pediatrics at Ohio State University. Similarly, to a childlike child, an abrasive cleanser may look take a shine to a container of Parmesan cheese.

Researchers at Nationwide Children's Hospital examined national data on unskilfully 267000 children aged 5 and under who were treated in emergency rooms after injuries with household cleaning products between 1990 and 2006. During this measure period, 72 percent of the injuries occurred in children between the ages of 1 and 3 years. The findings were published online Aug 2, 2010 and will appear in the September engraving point of Pediatrics.

To prevent accidental injuries from household products, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends storing evil substances in locked cabinets and out of discern and reach of children, buying products with child-resistant packaging, keeping products in their character containers, and properly disposing of leftover or unused products. "This study just confirms how often these accidents still happen, how disruptive they can be to health, and how dear they are to treat," said Dr Robert Geller, medical guide of the Georgia Poison Control Center in Atlanta. "If you consider that the average pinch room visit costs at least $1000, you're looking at almost $12 million a year in health-care costs".

And "Often a teenage child gets exposed to these kinds of products when someone is cleaning, and leaves a grit open on the counter because they're in the middle of using it," said Geller, who is also a professor of pediatrics at Emory University School of Medicine. "So a encomiastic reminder is to always minuscule the product completely after using it, even if you plan to open it again in a few minutes".

That scenario is almost exactly what happened to 1-year-old Keegan Ensign, who was treated at Nationwide's danger department earlier this year. "It was one of the at the outset nice days in May, and we were all outside playing on the driveway," said Keegan's mother, Tamara Ensign, 29, a take care of of three in Lewis Center, Ohio. "I had a bottle of dish soap out because the kids wanted to tomfoolery car wash, and I set it down on the pavement and turned my back for just a second. When I turned back around, Keegan was holding the manliness and wailing".

Although Keegan's mummy didn't think he had swallowed very much of the soap, she called poison control because he was coughing and wheezing a lot. Concerned that he might have aspirated some of the cleaner into his lungs, the plague control official advised Ensign to judge Keegan to the hospital.

Thankfully, doctors there determined that the toddler's lungs were clear and his oxygen levels were fine, and he entirely recovered, but Ensign said the incident was a harsh wake-up call. "Inside the house, I've always been lofty about keeping everything in a locked cabinet, but because we were outside in a different setting, it didn't curmudgeonly my mind until it was too late".

McKenzie says if you don't want to keep spray bottles locked up, you should at least change the nozzle to the closed position, which makes it a lot harder for a curious toddler to snag it and squeeze. Parents who suspect their child has come in contact with a poison should immediately contact the Poison Center at 1-800-222-1222, which will sincere callers to their local Poison Center howporstarsgrowit.com. If a child is unconscious, not breathing, or having seizures, they should invoke 911.