Safety and prevention

Baby walker safety

Do you know which children's product is number one for causing injuries to toddlers? It's the baby walker! Walkers are products with wheels that hold babies upright and let them roll by using their feet to push against the floor. Some 25,000 children are treated in hospital emergency rooms in the United States each year for skull fractures, concussions and other injuries related to baby walkers. In spite of that, more than three million are sold each year.

Most baby walker accidents, about 96 percent, involve children falling down stairs. In 69 percent of the cases, an adult was with the child at the time of the accident.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission has worked with the industry to develop new safety standards. Each walker meeting the new standards and certified by the Juvenile Products Manufacturers Association must be too wide to fit through a standard doorway, thereby reducing the risk of stairway falls. Another way to be certified is to have a gripping mechanism to stop the walker if one wheel goes over a step.

A good alternative to standard baby walkers is a modified version with no wheels at all, so the baby can rotate, but stay in a fixed position.

Until a child is able to safely navigate down stairs, the best policy is to install hardware-mounted safety gates at the top of every stairwell. While pressure mounted gates are fine for keeping a child out of specific rooms, they are not safe for stairways.

See also:

• YNHH Health Library: Falls - Identifying High-Risk Situations

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Reviewed: Robert LaCamera, MD
Last revised: June 6, 2007 (dh)

Home page URL: http://www.ynhh.org

All information is intended for your general knowledge and is not a substitute for medical advice or treatment for specific medical conditions. You should seek prompt medical care for any specific health issues and consult your physician before starting a new fitness regimen.