Childproofing Your Home

Home is probably the one place parents like to believe is the safest for their children. However, your house may hold countless safety hazards that may be harmful—even fatal—to your children. Home injury deaths are caused primarily by fire and burns, drowning, suffocation, choking, unintentional firearm injury, poisoning and falls. Young children are at the greatest risk because they spend most of their time at home.

To help reduce the risk of tragedy at home, the National SAFE KIDS Campaign offers the following tips to parents and caregivers:

• Safety, not convenience, comes first when childproofing the home. Busy parents and individuals without children in the home are more likely to store household items with convenience, rather than safety, as the top priority. Curious kids can be very determined, so lock all potentially harmful products out of their reach.
• Parents need to examine everything in the home from the vantage point of a young child. Get down on the floor on your hands and knees and explore the home the way a curious young child might. You may feel silly, but taking this precaution is far better than any tragic alternative for your child or loved one.
• Cover every room in the home. During your inspection, ask yourself, what looks tempting? What is within reach? Look for potential dangers between the floor and about 40 inches above the floor. Also, check floors and carpets for buried dangers like pins or coins. Remove or correct any potential hazards.

For further information, please visit the National SAFE KIDS Campaign's website at: http://www.safekids.org