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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsAs Injuries Continue, Doctors Renew Call For Ban On Infant Walkers
Last edited Mon Sep 17, 2018, 04:42 PM - Edit history (3)
Skull fractures, concussions and broken bones are common injuries when children not yet able to walk use infant walkers and fall down stairs."I view infant walkers as inherently dangerous objects that have no benefit whatsoever and should not be sold in the U.S.," says Dr. Benjamin Hoffman, a pediatrician who chairs the American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Injury, Violence and Poison Prevention.
More than 230,000 children under 15 months old were treated in U.S. hospital emergency departments for skull fractures, concussions, broken bones and other injuries related to infant walkers from 1990 through 2014, according to a study in the journal Pediatrics published Monday.
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The walkers can allow babies to toddle into areas they ordinarily could not reach stairways, pools, bathtubs and kitchens. Some have drowned, and some have suffered burns after pulling boiling food off stoves, Rose says.
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2018/09/17/646413330/as-injuries-continue-doctors-renew-call-for-ban-on-infant-walkers
shraby
(21,946 posts)I wouldn't even allow my young'un into the kitchen while I was working there, walker or not. It was blocked off so they couldn't get in there.
PoindexterOglethorpe
(25,895 posts)First of all, why give the baby mobility they can't attain on their own?
And around the time my oldest was a baby (he's 35 now), I read that kids who spent a lot of time in them were actually delayed in walking, because they didn't do the things on their own they needed to be doing to walk. And to crawl.
MaryMagdaline
(6,856 posts)DesertRat
(27,995 posts)There really is no reason to use them.
DesertRat
(27,995 posts)Tardislass
(86 posts)However, they also fenced them in and would never allow them near the stairs. Honestly are people completely stupid. I wouldn't let my toddler near the stairs.
Kaleva
(36,343 posts)When I was a foster parent, we didn't use walkers but we were required to have baby gates at the stairs.
Chemisse
(30,817 posts)If stairs are not blocked off.
DesertRat
(27,995 posts)More from the article:
Baby gates seem like a no brainer, but considering the injury stats, not enough people use them.
RobinA
(9,894 posts)a nurse, and my father, a doctor, were against walkers back in the 60s due to the injury factor. We were the only kids whose baby sibling didnt have a walker because my mother pretty much considered them the devils work.
0rganism
(23,970 posts)i'll take it as a sign of the times, such as they are