From HealthNewsDigest.com

Children's Health
Preventing Pediatric Falls
By
May 23, 2015 - 10:14:00 AM

(HealthNewsDigest.com) - ROCHESTER, Minn. - When people think of kids and trauma, they often think about car accidents. "However, in reality, falls are the leading cause of childhood injury and most of them happen around the home," saysChristopher Moir, M.D., pediatric surgeon at Mayo Clinic Children Center, who has cared for a wide variety of injuries related to falls.

There are approximately 8,000 children treated in emergency rooms for falls every day, according to theCenters for Disease Control and Prevention. At Mayo Clinic's Level 1 Pediatric Trauma Center, 35 percent of the children cared for in 2014 were the result of a fall.

Falls can happen anywhere but some of the most common mechanisms for kids' falls are from playground equipment, off changing tables, off infant seats placed on high surfaces, from baby walkers, out of shopping carts and out of windows. When children fall out of windows, the injuries that result are more serious than other types of falls.

MEDIA CONTACT: Kelley Luckstein, Mayo Clinic Public Affairs, 507-284-5005, email: [email protected]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e53l54cvf6Y

"Kids play. They are active, imaginative and creative and they fall all the time. That's what they do," says Dr. Moir. "But parents need to know how essential it is to never lose sight of their child while they are young and defenseless."

Dr. Moir offers advice on how to protect children from general falls:

This is a high-risk time for children to fall from windows. "It happens every day. Actually 14 times on average every day a child will be seriously injured from falling out of a window," says Dr. Moir.

Here are reminders as the weather gets nice and windows are opened to let in fresh air in:

If a child sustains an injury from a fall, contact a health care provider. If it is serious or life-threatening, seek immediate medical attention. If there are no obvious injuries, Dr. Moir suggests that parents watch the child, and if the child is not acting like himself after a fall, seek medical treatment immediately.

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About Mayo Clinic
Mayo Clinic is a nonprofit organization committed to medical research and education, and providing expert, whole-person care to everyone who needs healing. For more information, visit http://www.mayoclinic.org/about-mayo-clinic and http://newsnetwork.mayoclinic.org/.

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