Published Sunday, March 30, 2003
Herald Staff Writer
With spring in the air, many kids are enjoying outside activities with their friends but kids and parents need to take caution and play safely.
The most common reason for emergency room visits when it comes to recreational activities are bicycle accidents, said Dr. John Cunningham, a Sharon pediatrician. About 500,000 visits a year are made to the emergency room for bicycle accidents and while car-versus-bicycle accidents are not the most common problem, they are the most severe, he said.
Cunningham said most of the injuries he sees are from kids falling off of a bicycle. Wearing helmets is the best way to reduce the risk of serious injury, he said.
Cunningham said not only does he encourage kids to wear helmets, but parents as well. He said often kids will model what their parents do.
A helmet should be worn parallel to the ground, fit snuggly enough that it doesn't slide around on the head and there should be enough room under the chin strap for two fingers, Cunningham said.
He said though kids should also wear helmets while skateboarding and rollerblading, many don't, which presents "a unique challenge for parents." Kids that participate in those activities are less likely to wear protective gear than those who ride bicycles.
"The culture of those types of activities commonly doesn't foster the use of helmets," he said.
Trampoline injuries also start appearing in the warm weather, especially when trampoline use is unorganized.
"My recommendation is to not have a trampoline," Cunningham said. He said the greatest risk of injury is when there are multiple children using the trampoline at one time, and the most common injuries are sprains, strains and fractures.
Water safety is also a big concern once the weather warms up.
"My main concern is people need to understand the difference between swimming proficiency and the ability of a child to practice water safety," Cunningham said. He said the developmental stages of a child limits their judgement.
Cunningham said children under the age of 4 are not considered able to make good decisions about water safety. He said parents get a "false sense of security" because their child can swim.
Small children should always be as close as an arm's length away from an adult when they're around water, Cunningham said.
There are plenty of cases where children drown because they are unsupervised and fall in a pool, Cunningham said. He said besides parental supervision, pools should also be properly gated.
Besides drowning, there are other ways children can also suffer from hypothermia, catch communicable diseases from a pool or get "water intoxication" which is when a child consumes a large amount of water and develops seizures, Cunningham said.
Use of sunscreen is a must, he added.
Baseball is considered a safe sport but there is a potential for injury, and there is a very high risk of injury when kids are playing unorganized, unsupervised and without proper equipment, Cunningham said.
"Kids in organized baseball are usually pretty well protected," Cunningham said.
There are about four yearly cases of death from baseball-related injuries each year, Cunningham said. He said the most common cause of death or severe injury is from direct baseball-to-chest contact. There are also deaths or serious injuries from ball-to-head impact, bat-to-head impact and ball-to-neck, -ears or -throat impact, he said.
Cunningham suggests a "low-impact baseball," especially for kids under the age of 10. He said hardness and compression of the ball is modified so it decreases the force of the impact.
Children under 10 are more susceptible to injury because their motor coordination and reaction times limit their ability to protect themselves.
During this time of the year Cunningham said he talks to his patients about recreational safety; in the winter he talks to them about winter sports safety. He said it's about informing the patients of safety measures in a timely way.
You can e-mail Herald Staff Writer Kristen Garrett at kgarrett@sharonherald.com