HHS HealthBeat (May 21, 2012)

Kids, stairs and falls

From the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, I’m Ira Dreyfuss with HHS HealthBeat.

Home should be a safe haven for a kid. But researchers who looked at national data on emergency department visits say falls down stairs account for a lot of injuries – and many can be prevented.

At Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, Dr. Gary Smith says there were close to 90,000 injuries to kids ages 5 and younger in 2008, the latest year for which there was data. Smith says some injuries can be prevented by installing gates at the top and bottom of stairs.

He also notes, though:

“An important finding in the study was that, among children younger than 1 year of age, about a quarter of the time, they were injured while being carried by a caretaker.” 

The study in the journal Pediatrics was supported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Learn more at healthfinder.gov.

HHS HealthBeat is a production of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. I’m Ira Dreyfuss.

Last revised: May 21, 2012