Safe Kids Pennsylvania featured on Comcast Newsmakers

In an interview on Comcast Newsmakers, Allyson Fulton, Child Safety Coordinator, discusses ways to prevent child injury and protect your family from carbon monoxide poisoning.

For more information about ways to prevent and detect carbon monoxide poisoning and proposed legislation in Pennsylvania, click here.

Comcast Newsmakers is a 5-minute feature airing at 24- and 54-minutes after the hour, every hour on CNN Headline News. The Safe Kids PA interview will air July-August 2010.

Safe Kids Pennsylvania Reminds Parents about the Dangers of Heat Stroke to Children Left Unattended in Vehicles

As summer temperatures soar, Safe Kids Pennsylvania reminds parents and caregivers about the dangers of heat stroke to children left unattended in vehicles and urges them to always check for sleeping children before leaving a vehicle. Make it a point to never leave your child alone in a care, even for one minute. Read More

U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) Launches National Campaign to Change the Way People Think and Act about Pool and Spa Safety

Pool Safely Campaign Aims to Reduce Child Drownings and Entrapments

CPSC, Olympians Hold Press Event to Release New Death and Injury Data

FORT LAUDERDALE, FL - The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) today kicks-off the Pool Safely campaign (www.poolsafely.gov), a first-of-its-kind national public education effort to reduce child drownings and non-fatal submersions, and entrapments in swimming pools and spas. At a press conference at the Fort Lauderdale Aquatic Complex today, Olympic swimmers Jason Lezak and Janet Evans joined Inez Tenenbaum, Chairman of the CPSC; U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL); and Nancy Baker, mother of Virginia Graeme Baker, to officially launch Pool Safely and release the CPSC's annual submersion and entrapment reports.

Today, CPSC released its annual reports on children's submersion and entrapment incidents which showed:

From 2005-2007 there was an annual average of 385 pool and spa-related drownings for children younger than 15; about 78 percent, or 299, of these children were younger than five.
From 2007-2009, there were an estimated average of 4,200 pool or spa emergency department-treated submersions for children younger than 15; and children between the ages of 12 to 35 months represented 47 percent of estimated injuries for these years.
About 54 percent of the estimated injuries for 2007 - 2009 and 74 percent of the fatalities for 2005 - 2007 involving children younger than fifteen occurred at a residence.
Most reported fatalities occurred on the day of (73 percent) or within a week of (additional 23 percent) the submersion incident. Just four percent of fatal victims survived beyond a week of the submersion; these victims had severe injuries and required intensive medical care.
There were no reported entrapment fatalities for 2009. CPSC did receive eight reports of entrapment incidents in which seven people were injured during 2009.

For the complete reports see: Pool and Spa Submersions 2010 (PDF) and Circulation/Suction Entrapments 2010 (PDF). The years for reported injury and fatality statistics differ as a result of the lag in fatality reporting.

To read the entire article, click here.

Safe Kids Summer Safety

We know that the summer months bring much joy to children - vacation from school, time to enjoy the outdoors with friends, family trips, and just time to be a kid. But during summer, drowning deaths increase by 89% and bike deaths increase by 45%. Have fun but be careful! Just follow a few simple guidelines to make sure your summer is fun, safe and injury free.

Five Truths About Children Who Drown!

You think that it could never happen to your family, but each year more than 800 children drown. These incidents are not only preventable but predictable.

Here are the five truths about children who drown and what you can do to help keep your children safe around water.

Weak or no supervision
No Barriers
Weak or No CPR Skills
Weak or No Swimming Ability
Lack of Life Jacket Use

Find about what you can do to keep your kids safe and injury free.

Summer and Bikes Can Be Deadly

Did you know that bikes are associated with more childhood injuries than any other consumer product except automobiles?

Sadly, child bicycling deaths increase 45% above the month average in the summer. With 27.7 million children riding bikes, we know there are too many of those kids riding without a helmet.

Find important bike safety tips here.

Bike helmets: Necessity, Not an Accessory

Watch this video to learn how to do the "eyes, ears, mouth test" to make sure your child's bike helmet fit correctly.

Proposed Legislation Aims to Curb Carbon Monoxide Poisoning Incidents

Read more

Find a Local Event in Your Area

Visit the Upcoming Events page

New Safe Kids Billboards

Safe Kids Pennsylvania has developed billboards on the importance of using child safety seats correctly.

Take a look! - Billboard 1 - Billboard 2 - Billboard 3

The goal for the bilboards is to create awareness of the importance of using child safety seats, promote the correct use of child safety seats and to celebrate Child Passenger Safety Week 2009.

The billboards will be posted across the Commonwealth. Look for one in your area. Have your child’s safety seat checked by a certified technician today!

New Resources on Child Injury Prevention from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Injury Center

Unintentional injuries - such as those caused by burns, drowning, falls, poisoning and road traffic - are the leading cause of morbidity and mortality among children in the United States. Each year, among those 0 to 19 years of age, more than 12,000 people die from unintentional injuries and more than 9 million are treated in emergency departments for nonfatal injuries.

In conjunction with the World Health Organization and UNICEF’s joint launch of the World Report on Child Injury Prevention (2008), the CDC’s Injury Center is pleased to announce the release of new resources for the prevention of child injuries in the United States.

Protect the Ones You Love: Child Injuries Are Preventable. This is a new initiative to raise parents’ awareness about the leading causes of child injury and how they can be prevented. As part of the initiative, the Injury Center has developed a number of resources that can be used to help parents to keep their children injury-free, including fact sheets, podcasts, e-cards, and media and event planning guides. Find these and other tools, all available free of charge, at: http://www.cdc.gov/safechild/.

CDC Childhood Injury Report: Patterns of Unintentional Injuries among 0-19 Year olds in the United States, 2000 – 2006. This data report provides an overview of unintentional injuries related to drowning, falls, fires or burns, transportation, poisoning, and suffocation, among others, during the period 2000 to 2006. Results are presented by age group and sex, as well as the geographic distribution of injury death rates by state. Read or download a copy of the report at: http://www.cdc.gov/safechild/Child_Injury_Data.htm.

Child Injury Prevention Video: On December 11, 2008, the Injury Center brought together a network of professionals to look at how policy, communications/media outreach, and national and local programs can be used to empower parents in their efforts to protect children. Watch a video of the highlights of the meeting at: http://www.cdc.gov/SafeChild/about.htm.

We encourage you to use these resources to educate, build awareness, and promote childhood injury prevention in the United States. Working together, we can keep our children safe and help them live to their full potential.

New CDC Report Finds Motor Vehicles and Falls are Causes of Most Child and Teen Injuries and Deaths in the United States

An estimated 55 million children and teens from birth to age 19 were treated in emergency departments for unintentional injuries from 2001 to 2006, according to a new report released today by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The report also notes that between 2000 and 2005, unintentional injuries resulted in 73,052 deaths among children and teens. Falls caused most non-fatal injuries (about 2.8 million each year), while most deaths were transportation-related (about 8,000 deaths each year involved a motor vehicle occupant, pedestrian or pedal cyclist).

According to the report, every year, an estimated 9.2 million children visited emergency departments for unintentional injuries. Falls were associated with over half of the nonfatal injuries involving children less than one year, while transportation-related injuries and deaths were highest among children 15 to 19 years of age. Overall, males were almost twice as likely to die as a result of unintentional injuries than females.

To help parents and other adults prevent child injuries, CDC is also launching the “Protect the Ones You Love” initiative. More about this initiative can be found at www.cdc.gov/safechild.

“Injury risks change as our children grow and we want them to be appropriately protected as they develop,” said Dr. Ileana Arias, Director of CDC′s Injury Center. “We encourage parents to be vigilant and to understand that there are proven ways to help reduce injuries at each life stage.”

Other notable findings in the CDC report include:

The highest fatality rates were among occupants of motor vehicles;
Drowning was the leading cause of unintentional injury death for children ages one to four. For those ages 5 to 19, most injury deaths were due to being an occupant in a motor vehicle crash; and
Children ages one to four also had the highest nonfatal injury rates due to poisoning and falls.

CDC′s report of national and state information on the leading causes of childhood injury is being released to coincide with the World Health Organization′s (WHO) and the United Nations Children′s Fund′s (UNICEF) launch of the 2008 World Report on Child Injury Prevention. The World Report provides a global perspective of child injury and prevention.

The full report, “CDC Childhood Injury Report: Patterns of Unintentional Injuries among 0-19 Year Olds in the United States, 2000-2006,” is available at www.cdc.gov/safechild/Child_Injury_Data.htm.

Booster Seats are Not-One-Size-Fits-All

Parents Must Find the Right Fit for Their Child

Booster seats are a proven way to help keep kids safer in vehicles.
In fact, for children 4 to 7 years old, booster seats reduce injury
risk by 59 percent compared to seat belts alone, according to
researchers at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.

But a report released today by the Insurance Institute for Highway
Safety has questioned if certain booster seats provide children with
a better fit than others. Kids come in all shapes and sizes, and not
all boosters will fit all children the same way. There are no "good"
seats and "bad" seats as the IIHS list might suggest—all meet the
government standard in crash tests. But booster seats are not
designed to be one-size-fits-all. The different variations in
boosters allow parents to find the right fit for each child.

It's All About Fit

Parents and caregivers should not panic and they should continue to
use booster seats for their children on every ride. However, there
are a few simple steps parents can take to make sure a child's
booster fits the correct way.

Safety belts are designed for adults and many children are too small to get a proper fit without using a booster seat. Most children who have outgrown their toddler seats but are still under 4 feet 9 inches tall and less than 80 pounds will be safest using a booster seat.

Take this easy fit test with your child to determine if a booster
seat fits your child:

Place your child on the booster seat and fasten the lap and
shoulder seat belts around the child.
Use the seat belt guides on the booster seat for the lap and
shoulder belts.
Check to be sure the lap belt rests on the top of the thighs or
low on the hips.
Check to be sure the shoulder belt is positioned on the bony
shoulder- not the neck or face. Never place the shoulder belt under the arm or behind the back.

If the shoulder belt and lap belt are on the child as stated above,
the booster seat will work as designed to protect your child in a
crash. If not, try another brand until you find the one that fits
your child. Fortunately, there are lots of choices.

If you're confused or would like a certified child passenger safety
technician to evaluate your child, contact Safe Kids Pennsylvania by calling 1-800-683-5100.