Anne Baum (00:00):
Why is it so important to childproof your home? What dangers can be found in and around your home? How do you keep your kids safe this holiday season? All that and more on this episode of Because They’re Kids.
Anne Baum (00:15)
And we are back for another episode of Because They’re Kids, the podcast that’s built just for kids and their parents. For those of you tuning in for the first time, I’m your host, Anne Baum, mom of two and president of Lehigh Valley Reilly Children’s Hospital. Today, we’re going to talk about home safety. We tend to associate safety with the areas in which we are most familiar, like our home. But did you know that about 4.5 million children are injured at home every year? In fact, research shows that children are more likely to get injured at home than anywhere else. Here to help us talk about how we can turn our homes into safe havens for kids is pediatric emergency medicine physician Teresa Romano. Welcome, Dr. Romano.
Teresa Romano (Opens in new tab 01:06):
Thanks for having me, Anne. I’m excited to be here.
Anne Baum (Opens in new tab 01:08):
Well, we’re excited to hear all of your knowledge that you’ve learned from your years in the children’s emergency room. I know you see all sorts of very interesting cases that come in the door, and we’re really looking forward to hearing your expertise.
Teresa Romano (Opens in new tab 01:23):
Great.
Anne Baum (Opens in new tab 01:24):
So, let’s start with why is it important to childproof your home?
Teresa Romano (Opens in new tab 01:28):
The home is supposed to be the most safe place for a child and a family to be, so you don’t even realize sometimes as adults, where you navigate dangers so effortlessly, that really the dangers you’re navigating could be serious for your children. And we’re comfortable at home, so we’re not always thinking about – while you’re outside and a child darts across the street, you’re not thinking about that in your house. You know where the steps are. You know where the falling risks are, things like that. But things are hidden, and it can be really challenging for kids to navigate that. So, adults need to look first and make it as safe as they can.
Anne Baum (Opens in new tab 02:08):
That’s really important. So, what’s the first step in getting your home ready and safe for kids? How do you start to assess this danger, the hidden dangers that are there that you as an adult take for granted?
Teresa Romano (Opens in new tab 02:23):
Yeah. Believe it or not, I think for first-time parents, when they’re bringing their babies home, I tell them to get down on their hands and knees and crawl around their house …
Anne Baum (Opens in new tab 02:31):
Oh, great.
Teresa Romano (Opens in new tab 02:32):
... and look to see where their child could potentially bump their head on a corner. What doors can they open from the bottom? How do they navigate getting outside in their house? Things like that.
Anne Baum (Opens in new tab 02:44):
That’s really great. I love that. And I can imagine people getting down on their hands and knees and seeing a whole new world, both from a safety and potentially a cleanliness perspective.
Teresa Romano (Opens in new tab 02:55):
Exactly.
Anne Baum (Opens in new tab 02:56):
So, what are some of the dangers that are found throughout a home? What should they be looking for?
Teresa Romano (Opens in new tab 03:02):
So, some of the really important things to look for are anything that’s small that children could choke on, dangerous chemicals and cleaning supplies. When I was a kid, we always had those green Mr. Yuk stickers. My mom had them on all the cleaning supplies underneath our kitchen sink. We want to think about medications, vitamins, supplements. Sometimes people may drop them on the floor and they don’t even realize, and a crawling toddler can find it and eat it. And then we’re stuck trying to figure out exactly what the medicine that they took is. Cords. So, if you have blinds or curtains in your home, the cords that connect them, kids can get strangled on those things.
(Opens in new tab 03:48):
Other important things are plastic bags from the grocery stores, ribbons. With the holidays coming up, Christmas ornaments, button batteries. The list, it’s endless about things that we just need to be thinking about. Once you start to realize what’s out there and the dangers that we have, it becomes pretty easy to keep them out of reach of children, but sometimes people don’t even realize what those dangers are.
Anne Baum (Opens in new tab 04:14):
Right. And kids naturally put things in their mouth, regardless of what it is, because they don’t know what it is and they’re experimenting and trying things. And I think it’s really important to think about, they start floor-bound, then they learn to stand, then they climb. Then next thing you know, they’re up on top of the counter. And I’m assuming that presents a lot of scary dangers for them.
Teresa Romano (Opens in new tab 04:42):
For sure. Imagine the pill that might’ve fallen by accident that looks like an M&M or a piece of candy to a toddler. And then as they start to get taller, they can climb up the drawers. If you’re in your kitchen, you have a stack of drawers that open, that can be a ladder, believe it or not. We’ve seen injuries that children have incurred because of things like that. Some kids can get the whole way up onto the counter and they’re walking around. In my kitchen, my stove connects right into my countertop. Could you imagine if a child climbed up onto the counter and walked across a hot stove? So, there’s lots of things to think about.
(Opens in new tab 05:22):
When I was training, I listened to a lecture one time about kitchen safety in particular. And I loved the little tip that they gave, that when you’re cooking on your stove, you want to keep the pots at the farthest heating element. The farthest one back. But not only that, take the handles for your pots, and your pans, and push them toward the back end of the wall. It’s little things like this that we don’t even think about. But a 2-year-old can reach up and grab that handle and pull something right down on top of them.
Anne Baum (Opens in new tab 05:55):
Right. And what an easy thing to do, yet could save them from a terrible burn. As you’re talking about counters and hot stoves, I’m thinking about my knife rack that’s up there, or glasses that are up there. And really thinking through, what if the toddler is up there? That’s an important thought.
Teresa Romano (Opens in new tab 06:19):
Think about as they grow, their arms get longer and longer. So, the cup that has your hot coffee first thing in the morning needs to go farther and farther back on the table. The child that’s sitting on their aunt’s or uncle’s lap having breakfast with everybody can easily grab that coffee mug and pull it right onto themselves. And we’ve seen patients that have had these injuries. And it just takes a little bit of extra effort to try to prevent them.
Anne Baum (Opens in new tab 06:45):
That’s really, really helpful. Now, we’re talking about inside the home. What about outside the home?
Teresa Romano (Opens in new tab 06:51):
One of my biggest things that [I] talk about, I always ask patients if they have a pool at their house. A pool’s a great, fun summertime activity for people, but it’s also really, really dangerous. And it’s so important to keep your kids supervised while they’re around a swimming pool. And there’s really specific ways the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that we do that.
Anne Baum (Opens in new tab 07:18):
And are there specific safety mechanisms that people should have around their pools, whether it’s alarms or the different types of gates?
Teresa Romano (Opens in new tab 07:26):
Yeah. So, you want to think about self-locking pool gates. You also want to think about fences that are directly around the perimeter of a pool, not just around your backyard or wherever part of the yard that the pool would be in. There’s pool alarms. So, if a child should fall into the pool, it would sound off an alarm and that would gather everybody’s attention to go running to see where the child is. And it’s not just pools, though. Think about people that have ponds in their yard. And a wandering child that’s just out playing could fall into a pond. These things have happened and they’re really, really devastating when they do. And so, any open body of water, really, we need to be thinking about.
Anne Baum (Opens in new tab 08:16):
That’s great advice, because you don’t really think about the little pond with the pretty goldfish in it that is clearly going to attract that child. You really don’t think of that as that safety risk for them. All right. So, what are some childproofing to-dos that aren’t as in-your-face, things that maybe we as adults take for granted, but kids want to eat?
Teresa Romano (Opens in new tab 08:40):
So, imagine your laundry room or where you do your wash. Those laundry detergent pods, they’re squishy. They look just like squish toys for kids. They have bright colors. They’re really dangerous. It’s actually very concentrated chemicals that we don’t want children to put in their mouth and try to swallow. The other thing we need to think about is maybe some houseplants. So, certain houseplants can be really dangerous for children. And looking at what plants come into your home is really important, and always making sure that they’re not toxic to young people. And remember, the amount that’s toxic to an adult can be way more than what would be toxic to a child, because they’re not as big as the adults. So, a small piece of something for an adult may not be a problem. But for a child who weighs significantly less, it can be a big problem.
Anne Baum (Opens in new tab 09:36):
So, how would you find out? I have no idea what a toxic houseplant would be. Where would you find information like that?
Teresa Romano (Opens in new tab 09:43):
So, a lot of times the plant labels will have it on there, “Keep out of reach of pets and children.” Some plants are on poison control websites and things like that. Go to the internet if you have the name of the plant that’s coming in. And if you don’t specifically know the name of the plant that you’re bringing home or somebody’s bringing you, you may just want to politely say, “Thanks, but no thanks.”
Anne Baum (Opens in new tab 10:04):
Yeah, really interesting. Plants are not something that I would’ve thought about. Are there other things that we use as adults all the time that are super dangerous for children?
Teresa Romano (Opens in new tab 10:15):
There’s a lot of things that we decorate with. So, with the holidays coming up, we talked about Christmas decorations. Some old, beautiful decorations that are glass may still have lead. If a child gets that, tries to eat it or break it, ingest it, they’ve ingested a sharp piece of glass or something like that. The Christmas trees. If you’re bringing a Christmas tree into your home, you want to make sure that they’re firmly attached to the wall because the Christmas trees can topple. On social media, there’s always those sad videos of the cats that knock over the Christmas trees. Well, children knock over Christmas trees, too.
Anne Baum (Opens in new tab 10:57):
Oh, wow. Yes.
Teresa Romano (Opens in new tab 10:59):
Yes. One thing that is sold as a toy for a child, but is actually really, really dangerous, are water beads. And these are small. They almost look like colorful, small, tiny pieces of candy. And what the purpose of them is, is you soak them in water and you watch them double, triple, quadruple in size. And then once they’re full of water, they’re squishy and kids like to play with them. And it’s a sensory thing, a sensory activity for them. But if they swallow them, they can continue to absorb water and sometimes cause a blockage in the intestine, which can be really dangerous as well. So, water beads are one of those things that we see out there, but we really would not recommend to play with them unsupervised for young children or at all.
Anne Baum (Opens in new tab 11:51):
It’s interesting because something that’s made for kids is actually dangerous for kids.
Teresa Romano (Opens in new tab 11:57):
One of the other things I talk to parents about all the time in real life, in the ER, are those tiny, little magnetic beads. So, again, another sensory object. They’re these tiny, little, silver beads that have this magnetic pull. And the kids can take them apart and put them together, and turn them into different forms of things. But if a child swallows some of those, they could get stuck at different areas of the intestine and magnetize back. And now you’ve magnetized two spots of your intestine together. And then the area where they’re magnetizing can cause ... the tissue between that area can die and then you can have a bowel problem because of that.
Anne Baum (Opens in new tab 12:45):
Wow. So, a friendly toy that seems really cool, maybe even educational, could be really devastating.
Teresa Romano (Opens in new tab 12:53):
Really devastating, yes. So, my kids never got to play with those magnetic little beads or water beads, despite their begging and pleading.
Anne Baum (Opens in new tab 13:04):
But it’s good to know, because you see a toy like that, you get it for your kids or somebody gives it to them, you are not thinking about that particular danger. And being aware of it and knowing to keep it away from them, I think that’s really important information. So, thank you.
Teresa Romano (Opens in new tab 13:22):
I was thinking about some other holiday things that are coming up. So, the button battery is a big, big concern for us in the children’s ER here at Lehigh Valley, because a lot of the small toys will come with these tiny disc-like batteries. And the problem with those disc-like batteries is when they’re swallowed, they can get stuck in a child’s esophagus or they can breathe them in and they can get into the airway. They can put them up in their nose. They can put them in their ears. The problem is that that button battery can cause a burn to skin. So, not [on] open skin. If you set a button battery on your hand, it wouldn’t really hurt you. But any sort of skin that has moisture with it, so the inside of the nose, the esophagus, the airway, it can actually really quickly start a process that leads to a burn. And we can also see some pretty devastating injuries from those.
Anne Baum (Opens in new tab 14:21):
Wow, that’s a small thing like that, that you don’t even think about is highly dangerous to kids.
Teresa Romano (Opens in new tab 14:27):
Right. They send two of them. There’s the one that’s in the toy and there’s the extra one that’s in the packaging, that some parents aren’t aware of. And if that button battery falls out and it lands on the floor, it could be potentially very dangerous for other children.
Anne Baum (Opens in new tab 14:42):
So, button batteries, keep them away.
Teresa Romano (Opens in new tab 14:45):
Keep them away. Keep them away, yes. Make sure you know where your button batteries are.
Anne Baum (Opens in new tab 14:49):
Are there other holiday accidents that you’ve seen that you’d like to prevent coming into the holiday season?
Teresa Romano (Opens in new tab 14:57):
I think just really being careful about holiday ornaments. What is in reach of a child that’s crawling around a Christmas tree? Will they pull down some of the decorations? For people that decorate with candles, again, you want the candles to be far enough on the middle of the table or your countertops, that kids can’t reach up and grab them and pull them down on themselves. It’s a really special, happy time. I wouldn’t want anybody to have anything take away from their holiday season with their family and friends.
Anne Baum (Opens in new tab 15:33):
Right, So, we’re on the fire topic. What are some of the things from a fire-safety perspective to consider when you have a child in the home?
Teresa Romano (Opens in new tab 15:43):
Yeah. So, when I was a child, my mom, I remember, had these large oval stickers that were on my siblings’ windows and my windows. So, if God forbid there was a fire in our home, the fire department knew what bedrooms or what windows were associated with a bedroom that had a child sleeping, that may or may not be sleeping in it. The other really big thing for fire is having a plan and practicing a plan. I know that sounds silly sometimes, but young children, they get this information at school. They do. They practice stop, drop and roll. I can remember when my own daughters came home telling me about stop, drop and roll. And we took that a little bit further and actually practiced where you would go. What would you do if the smoke alarm in our house went off or there was smoke pouring into your room? Are they able to exit safely or know where to go or how to navigate a dark or smoky house?
Anne Baum (Opens in new tab 16:51):
I think that’s great. And having that meeting place, too, where everybody knows where to go.
Teresa Romano (Opens in new tab 16:56):
Yes, exactly. Yes. Yes. And inside, but also outside the house. If everybody’s getting out of their house at different places and different spaces, then having a meeting spot outside across the street at the neighbor’s tree or something like that is really important.
Anne Baum (Opens in new tab 17:10):
That’s great. You mentioned windows. Windows present a safety hazard.
Teresa Romano (Opens in new tab 17:16):
Yes, yes.
Anne Baum (Opens in new tab 17:16):
Tell us more on how we can keep our windows safe.
Teresa Romano (Opens in new tab 17:19):
Yeah. So, windows should all have screens on the outsides of them. And there should be locks to windows as well – locks that are high, so that, again, you have to be taller to be able to approach the lock to get it open. And just again, do you know how high your child is and how high they can reach up to get that lock? And so, if God forbid they were able to open the window, then that’s your first layer of protection, but then also the screen being the second layer of protection.
Anne Baum (Opens in new tab 17:54):
Right. And I know in tall buildings they even have those window guards to keep the kids safe.
Teresa Romano (Opens in new tab 17:59):
Yes, exactly. And you can purchase those for your home as well.
Anne Baum (Opens in new tab 18:02):
Oh, that’s great. That’s good to know. So, when you look at a house, what is the most dangerous room in the house?
Teresa Romano (Opens in new tab 18:14):
Any parents that I have taken care of in the children’s ER, who have come in because they were concerned that their child may have swallowed a medication, we sort of joke a little bit about grandparents can actually be pretty dangerous sometimes. They’re wonderful people. They provide a lot of love to children, but grandparents have their own sort of hidden risks that I think it’s important to talk about. I’m not knocking grandparents. My parents are going to come after me, I’m afraid, after this.
Anne Baum (Opens in new tab 18:43):
We’ll protect you.
Teresa Romano (Opens in new tab 18:44):
OK, good. So, when you either take your child to a grandparent or an elderly family member’s home, or an elderly family member, or it doesn’t even have to be an elderly family member, but somebody who’s not always around children but are on some medicines to help them deal with their own medical problems. If you’re not thinking about it and a pill falls to the floor, a child can get that pill and eat it. And a lot of times then we’re left trying to guess what medication they could have taken. We as pediatric emergency medicine doctors in the children’s ER here at Reilly Children’s always are thinking about that list of the top 10 pills that can really be dangerous to a child.
(Opens in new tab 19:33):
And unfortunately, some of those medicines are really necessary for individuals with high blood pressure or diabetes and things like that. But just taking that extra step and having that extra conversation with grandma or grandpa about making sure the medications are really stored safely, and that the floor is checked for any dropped medications, and that medications are picked up immediately after they are dropped, can be really, really helpful in keeping children safe.
Anne Baum (Opens in new tab 20:02):
And I suppose as a parent, checking around if you are dropping your kids off, looking for those hidden dangers.
Teresa Romano (Opens in new tab 20:09):
Yes.
Anne Baum (Opens in new tab 20:10):
And is there a place where people can find that list of those really scary medicines so they can be even more careful with them?
Teresa Romano (Opens in new tab 20:19):
Yeah. The medical literature usually lists articles called the 10 pills that can kill. And they’re dangerous pills, but they’re also pills again that we talked about. Even the dose that an adult may take, a minuscule of that dose is all that is needed to really hurt a child who weighs or is much smaller than that person. But yes, there’s definitely lists out there. I highly recommend the Poison Control website for some of this information. It really is valuable. If you’re concerned about your child ingesting a medication, I recommend calling the Poison Control center. In many of the children’s emergency departments I’ve worked in, we get phone calls from Poison Control, saying that there’s a patient coming to you, that we’re concerned about this. And we work together with that organization. Here at Lehigh Valley Health Network, we have the toxicology group that really is super helpful and knowledgeable about the properties, and the pathophysiology of some of the medications, and what it does in the body. And so, we are always working together with those specialists to help identify a medication that a child could have ingested.
Anne Baum (Opens in new tab 21:32):
Yeah. That’s really good to know, that those resources are available right here. And hopefully, they don’t find themselves in a situation where that child ingested something. But if they do, we’ve got those experts to help.
Teresa Romano (Opens in new tab 21:47):
Absolutely. And I always tell parents, a lot of times parents will bring their child in and they’re like, “I think this was probably a waste.” And really, if you had any thought that your child was in danger and you need them to be evaluated, it’s never a waste of time. Because even kids that have ingested something can look OK for the first hour or so, and then the effects and the toxic problems that we see can develop later on. I don’t ever think if a parent’s worried that it’s been a wasted trip to the children’s emergency department or a call to the pediatrician’s office to help navigate those things.
Anne Baum (Opens in new tab 22:25):
Thank you for saying that, because I think parents in general don’t want to be that hysterical, panicky parent. But if you have that feeling or you don’t know, better safe than sorry.
Teresa Romano (Opens in new tab 22:38):
Absolutely. Absolutely.
Anne Baum (Opens in new tab 22:41):
So, when do you stop babyproofing or childproofing a house? Or is that something that never really ends?
Teresa Romano (Opens in new tab 22:49):
Well, I think as your child, you’re the parent, so you know your child best. And once your child has a really good understanding of the risks of their environment, then I think you can start to stop some of these things. Let’s talk about stair gates, for example. Stair gates are one of those things that can be a nuisance for families. I can remember when my babies were little, and I’d have to carry laundry up and down the stairs. Laundry basket to the stair gate, open the stair gate, close the stair gate. You go up the stairs, put the laundry basket back down. You open the stair gate, you close the stair gate.
(Opens in new tab 23:30):
But until your child is really independently mobile on stairs, I think it’s a good idea to still have those in place. And your pediatrician, when you see them for their regularly-scheduled checkups, they’ll work with you on knowing that your child can independently, appropriately navigate stairs in the order of two feet together on each step or one foot … . And when they’re really very safe around that.
Anne Baum (Opens in new tab 23:57):
That’s great. Well, pediatricians are such an amazing resource, and we really should take advantage of them. As you were talking about the laundry basket with the gate, and then instead of opening it, try and step over and then you end up in the emergency room, also not …
Teresa Romano (Opens in new tab 24:14):
Not recommended.
Anne Baum (Opens in new tab 24:15):
There should be patient safety or parent safety, as well as child safety.
Teresa Romano (Opens in new tab 24:19):
Yes. I think that’s a really good point, actually. Anything that looks unsafe to you as a parent is unsafe to your child.
Anne Baum (Opens in new tab 24:28):
Great point.
Teresa Romano (Opens in new tab 24:28):
We’ve talked about all of these hidden things, but if you have that sinking suspicion or that sinking feeling that something isn’t safe, it probably isn’t. And it also lends to your question of when do you stop childproofing. I think as your children get older, childproofing changes and you then start to navigate …
Anne Baum (Opens in new tab 24:51):
Good point.
Teresa Romano (Opens in new tab 24:51):
... life with an adolescent and some of that risk-taking behavior. And you really need to listen to your gut and say, “Gosh, is this place where I’m dropping them off or is this situation that they’ve described to me, is my child going to be able to be safe in this situation?” So, you may not be locking cabinet doors anymore, but you are still ... As parents, our No. 1 goal is to keep our children and our children’s friends, and my nieces and nephews, I want them all to be as safe as they can be.
Anne Baum (Opens in new tab 25:25):
That’s very well said. And I love how you’re mentioning that intuition. I mean, intuition is a summary of your own life experiences. So, listening to that, that little voice in your head, probably is extraordinarily valuable.
Teresa Romano (Opens in new tab 25:40):
Yes.
Anne Baum (Opens in new tab 25:42):
So, what about some of the basics, like don’t run with scissors? Do these things all still apply?
Teresa Romano (Opens in new tab 25:48):
Yes, absolutely. Don’t run with scissors, straws, drumsticks, wood sticks, anything like that. Anything that a child is running with, and they trip, and they can sort of poke into their beings. Or God forbid, if they’re holding something in their mouth and they’re running. We’ve seen children that have injuries to the back of the throat, which can be a really dangerous spot that people don’t think about, because they were running with a stick and it punctured the back of the throat there. So, yes, we still don’t run with scissors or any of the other items that I described.
(Opens in new tab 26:27):
Other outdoor things. I’m sorry. Swingsets are really popular and things like that, but kids shouldn’t be on those unsupervised. I’ll say that when children come in with forearm fractures, one of the most common places that we see a forearm fracture is from a child that fell off a monkey bar. So, we had a swingset in my yard when my kids were little, and there were no monkey bars on that swingset.
Anne Baum (Opens in new tab 26:56):
Because you knew the risk.
Teresa Romano (Opens in new tab 26:57):
Because I said, “I’m not going to have them get a forearm fracture in my yard.” But any type of height, we want to make sure that our children are supervised when they’re up high, that they’re never beyond as far as you can reach up and still touch them. That’s really important. And actually, now that we’re talking about it, I think we mentioned swimming pools briefly. But any child that has had any difficulty with seizures. So, if your child’s ever experienced a seizure, a lot of times in the children’s ER, we’ll talk about seizure precautions. And what seizure precautions really are, are places that could be really dangerous to your child if they were to have a seizure.
Anne Baum (Opens in new tab 27:42):
Oh, good to know.
Teresa Romano (Opens in new tab 27:43):
Two of those places are elevated heights. So, again, they shouldn’t be anywhere that you can’t have your hand on them. And swimming pools or any open body of water.
Anne Baum (Opens in new tab 27:53):
Any open water.
Teresa Romano (Opens in new tab 27:53):
Yeah. Even a bathtub. They should never be bathing unsupervised, because God forbid they would have a seizure and go under the water. They could drown. And that’s something that could easily be prevented.
Anne Baum (Opens in new tab 28:04):
Sure. Great advice. Other outdoor things to think about or even making sure that your children can’t get outdoors without you?
Teresa Romano (Opens in new tab 28:15):
Yeah. So, door locks. Even as far as gates, if you have a porch, a really important thing is if your porch is elevated in your home, the distance between the slats on the porch railing is super important.
Anne Baum (Opens in new tab 28:35):
Because they could fit through them.
Teresa Romano (Opens in new tab 28:37):
They can fit through them, yes. You’d be surprised how many times that has happened. And while we’re talking about homes, you also want to think about this, if you’re renting a beach house in the summertime. Does your beach home that you’re renting in or the grandparents’ house or anywhere you’re visiting, really, have an elevated porch? And if it does, then the distance between the railings is something you really should think about, because young infants and small toddlers that are starting to crawl, that’s around 9 months, they’re not that big and they can easily slip through those spaces.
Anne Baum (Opens in new tab 29:09):
And they’re curious?
Teresa Romano (Opens in new tab 29:10):
Absolutely, yeah.
Anne Baum (Opens in new tab 29:12):
Great advice. Thank you. We’ve talked about a lot of different risks in the home. And there are a lot of standard ones that it’s important to remember, furniture that can topple over. So, tell us about some more of those maybe more common protections that we might forget about.
Teresa Romano (Opens in new tab 29:33):
Yeah. When you buy a new piece of furniture, a lot of times there’s this little bag attached to the back of the cabinet or bookshelf or whatever it is. That’s usually a topple kit, believe it or not. And that’s a way to anchor a bookshelf or a cabinet, or something along those lines, to a wall. Because again, kids like to climb, so they’ll climb up the bookshelf and then the bookshelf can tip and fall. My daughter had a really big dollhouse that she loved playing with, and sometimes that was unsteady. So, we had to fasten it to the back of the wall, so that as she was playing it and navigating it, it wouldn’t come down on top of her.
Anne Baum (Opens in new tab 30:14):
Well, and just remembering kids are curious and they don’t know the dangers. What about television sets and big entertainment centers?
Teresa Romano (Opens in new tab 30:24):
Yes. So, if you have a television stand and your television is on top of it, and a child can reach up and grab, the television’s at risk for coming down on top of that child. So, anything above the height of a child that they can reach up onto or climb up onto, can also fall forward and hit them from above. So, anything. It could be a stereo, it could be a television, it could be a large computer that you have in your home, things like that. Like large stationary computers, I know they’re rare these days, but those can still be one of the things that can come down on children.
Anne Baum (Opens in new tab 31:03):
Well, and I’m not sure people are thinking about that, again, because you’re taking it for granted. “This is my chest of drawers.” You’re not thinking about it tipping over onto a child. What about electrical outlets? I mean, electricity is scary and dangerous if used incorrectly. What are some of those natural things to do to protect your kids from electricity?
Teresa Romano (Opens in new tab 31:25):
So, if a child is playing with something and they see this hole in the wall, they’re going to want to put something in it. And household current can injure kids. So, we want to just make that’s not even possible by using outlet covers and things like that.
Anne Baum (Opens in new tab 31:41):
I know we had outlet covers in our house. And I remember my mom making such a big point about not using electrical things in the bathtub, so the blowdryer not falling in. So, how do you make sure that your family is remembering, unplug that item, put it away, don’t use your phone in the bathtub?
Teresa Romano (Opens in new tab 32:06):
It’s a really good point. There’s new electric codes that your electrician is going to be helpful with and installing specific outlets in places where there is water. But yes, unplugging all of those things in the bathtub or around a bathtub, or just even a kitchen sink or a bathroom sink, is really important. We want to be thinking about that at all times.
Anne Baum (Opens in new tab 32:31):
So that those outlets will shut off and …
Teresa Romano (Opens in new tab 32:33):
Exactly.
Anne Baum (Opens in new tab 32:34):
... cut the current?
Teresa Romano (Opens in new tab 32:35):
Yes, yes.
Anne Baum (Opens in new tab 32:36):
And while we’re talking about it, bathtub safety. There’s a lot with bathtubs.
Teresa Romano (Opens in new tab 32:41):
Yes. So, always, a child that is not able to support themselves sitting up should never be in a bathtub without your hand on them because they can slide down. The other thing that’s really important that we sometimes don’t think about is the water temperature. How hot …
Anne Baum (Opens in new tab 32:56):
Good point.
Teresa Romano (Opens in new tab 32:57):
... is the water that’s coming out of your faucet. So, people can check their water heater in their homes and make sure that the water temperature, heat, the water heater, is not set above 120 degrees.
Anne Baum (Opens in new tab 33:11):
Oh, great. That’s a great number for us to share with people.
Teresa Romano (Opens in new tab 33:15):
And that’ll help mitigate some of those scald burns from turning on really hot water. The other thing I recommend is that you fill up the bathtub first. You check it with your arm before you put your child in. They have covers that go on the knobs in the bathtub that you can put on top, so that children that are playing and can ambulate around a bathtub on their own won’t turn on the water by themselves as well without mom or dad knowing. And if the water temperature’s set below that 120 degrees, then you have less of a risk of scald burns from that.
Anne Baum (Opens in new tab 33:49):
Yeah, great advice for that. Thank you. Now, what about just alarms in general? Most homes, you have a fire alarm. Are there other alarms that we should have in a home?
Teresa Romano (Opens in new tab 34:01):
Yeah. So, your smoke detectors, fire alarms, and then also we don’t want to forget about carbon monoxide alarms.
Anne Baum (Opens in new tab 34:08):
Oh, great.
Teresa Romano (Opens in new tab 34:09):
You want those alarms to be on all levels of the home. A lot of times think about keeping a fire extinguisher not only on the first floor of your home or where your kitchen is, but also on the second floor of your home. And always check the battery. You want to get in the practice of checking the batteries or doing a test of that alarm every year. If it’s New Year’s Day that you go around and you check all the alarms in your home to make sure they’re fully functioning and appropriately working, that can really help and help you keep your family safe.
Anne Baum (Opens in new tab 34:42):
I’ve always heard when you’re changing the clock, change your batteries in your fire alarms and then it becomes a habit.
Teresa Romano (Opens in new tab 34:49):
There you go. That’s a great suggestion. Yes, that’s perfect. Then you can just celebrate New Year’s Day and new year.
Anne Baum (Opens in new tab 34:56):
Yes. I like New Year’s too, so we can do it all the different times.
Teresa Romano (Opens in new tab 34:59):
Yeah. Whatever works for your family.
Anne Baum (Opens in new tab 35:00):
And then the batteries will always be fresh.
Teresa Romano (Opens in new tab 35:02):
Yes, yes.
Anne Baum (Opens in new tab 35:03):
So, we were talking about the stove and being mindful of where you put the pots, turning the arms away, the handles away. Sounds to me like the kitchen might be one of our most dangerous rooms in the house. What are some of the other things to watch for in the kitchen?
Teresa Romano (Opens in new tab 35:21):
Sure. And we spend a lot of time in the kitchen. Kids want to help cook dinner and bake different things. I think we should just really mention some spices, that there’s lots of things on social media about how much cinnamon can you put in your mouth and whatnot. Spices like cinnamon and nutmeg can cause asphyxiation. And there’s lots of things going around on social media where they’re trying to put a tablespoon or a large amount of cinnamon in their mouth, and that can cause people to choke.
Anne Baum (Opens in new tab 35:53):
Well, and spices, you just would never think of that as something dangerous in your kitchen. And probably almost everybody has that spice cabinet, the spice rack that’s readily accessible.
Teresa Romano (Opens in new tab 36:04):
Right. And thinking about spices, too, a lot of times we have those plug-in air fresheners. The oil that’s in those plug-in air fresheners that smell like a lot of these spices can also be very dangerous for kids.
Anne Baum (Opens in new tab 36:16):
Oh, wow. And a lot of those would be in the …
Teresa Romano (Opens in new tab 36:18):
In the electrical socket.
Anne Baum (Opens in new tab 36:19):
... electrical outlets that are right there where the kids are.
Teresa Romano (Opens in new tab 36:22):
Right. Other things that we want to think about specifically in the kitchen are freestanding stoves. So, again, use those topple kits to fasten them to the back of the wall so that they can’t come forward. Locks for your oven door, so that a child can’t pull on an oven, the door and open it while something’s heating or even not heating, but that the surface isn’t hot and they could burn their hands on. When you’re done after you’ve used your kitchen appliance, store it, unplug it, store it with the cord tightly wrapped around the object so that can’t become a strangulation risk for children, those long power cords. And then the other thing we need to mention is that you never ever want to store something that is dangerous in a container that looks like it should be used for food, because that can be really misleading to young children.
Anne Baum (Opens in new tab 37:19):
Right. And I know I store a lot of my kitchen cleaning items right under the sink. When my kids were little, we had those little door hooks on it. But if not, that’s probably dangerous as well.
Teresa Romano (Opens in new tab 37:34):
Yeah. So, there are little cabinet latches that prevent kids from being able to open the door completely. They also have really great things for kitchen drawers, because kids put their fingers up and in, and then they pinch their little fingers on that. There’s a lot of fingernail, nail-bed injuries that we take care of from things like that. So, little drawer stops or the soft-close drawers and things like that can be really helpful in keeping kids safe in the kitchen.
Anne Baum (Opens in new tab 38:04):
Yeah, that’s great.
Teresa Romano (Opens in new tab 38:05):
The other thing I always think about are the magnets that we use on our refrigerator. Are they small enough that a child could swallow them? And that just goes with anything that a child is playing with, that you want to make sure is not something small that they can put in their mouth and choke on.
Anne Baum (Opens in new tab 38:23):
And those are generally colorful and fun-looking, sometimes even shaped like food. So, we probably are causing more problem than we should be.
Teresa Romano (Opens in new tab 38:31):
Yes. You bring your purse into the kitchen and some of your coins fall. Kids come into the emergency department a lot for swallowed coins. Button batteries aren’t the only things they swallow. They’re probably the most dangerous. But we get lots of quarters, and lots of pennies and things like that.
Anne Baum (Opens in new tab 38:48):
Interesting.
Teresa Romano (Opens in new tab 38:49):
Yeah. And there’s specific places in the esophagus where coins will get stuck. So, we as children’s emergency department physicians are always looking at ... We may get an X-ray to look to make sure that there’s not something stuck in those areas of the esophagus that are more narrow and more prone to have things stuck.
Anne Baum (Opens in new tab 39:08):
So, better to keep them in your change purse than take them to the emergency room?
Teresa Romano (Opens in new tab 39:12):
Yes. And grandma and grandpa can hold the change until they get to the candy store, rather than giving it to the child.
Anne Baum (Opens in new tab 39:18):
Oh, good thinking. Good thinking.
Teresa Romano (Opens in new tab 39:21):
Yeah. They want to put them all in their mouths, so that’s how they explore their environment.
Anne Baum (Opens in new tab 39:25):
Yeah. That’s how they learn.
Teresa Romano (Opens in new tab 39:26):
That’s how they learn.
Anne Baum (Opens in new tab 39:26):
But we don’t want them to learn by visiting you.
Teresa Romano (Opens in new tab 39:29):
Right. We want them to learn in the safest way possible.
Anne Baum (Opens in new tab 39:32):
Yeah. I’d like to switch our topic to gun safety, get a little deeper into it. Many people have a gun in their home, and your kids may be visiting a home where a gun is located. So, what are some of the key things that a family needs to know in storing their own gun or about another family that may have a gun in the home?
Teresa Romano (Opens in new tab 39:55):
Right. It is very common to have guns in the home, and we just need to make our kids as safe as we possibly can be around them. Places where my children went to play, I asked the question, “Are there guns in your home?” I think that we need to normalize that conversation. The other thing is that if you do own a gun and it’s in your home, you want to make sure that it’s stored without the ammunition inside the gun. So, remove any ammunition from in the gun, store the gun in one place, and the ammunition in a very different, separate location. There are things on the market, and some of these are available for free, but gun locks. So, a gun lock is an object that you put on a gun that prevents the trigger from being pulled. Again, the safest thing is to not have any ammunition in that gun, but always also to have a lock in place to prevent the trigger from being pulled.
Anne Baum (Opens in new tab 40:52):
And also, the storage of the gun and the ammunition, that’s locked as well?
Teresa Romano (Opens in new tab 40:57):
Yes. Exactly. Yes. The gun is stored, locked, the ammunition is stored, locked. And keys, passwords, things like that, they’re not available for children to find or anybody really to find.
Anne Baum (Opens in new tab 41:11):
Right. So, it should be really tough for them. And what do kids need to know about guns?
Teresa Romano (Opens in new tab 41:18):
I think if you have a gun in your home, they need to know that this is really an adult-only thing. There’s gun safety courses and things like that that you can take when you’re ready and old enough to participate in them. And so, the other thing is that, unfortunately, in the world we live in today, the risk of childhood and adolescent suicide is increasing. And that is a really impulsive act sometimes that we see happen. And the fact that if a gun is stored and the components of the ammunition are stored separately, sometimes just the fact that they know that it’s not there, the impulsivity of that feeling and that moment, God forbid, to find a gun and then find that the ammunition isn’t there, then they have to go somewhere else or they have to do something else, and then the impulsivity sort of fades. That moment fades.
(Opens in new tab 42:22):
So, this is really about keeping people safe. And it may not be a gun in your home that your child has access to. It could be a gun in anybody else’s home, too. So, again, talking with your relatives and grandparents and close family members where your children play is important, because this is such a preventable thing that it starts with us.
Anne Baum (Opens in new tab 42:47):
Dr. Romano, thank you so much for joining us today. This was amazing, so much great information to keep our homes safe. Do you have any final thoughts for our audience?
Teresa Romano (Opens in new tab 42:59):
And I really had a nice time talking about all of this. It can seem overwhelming, but I think it’s really important for families just to know that you can’t start early enough. The minute you find out that you’re expecting a baby, start thinking about these things. And it’s going to change as your child gets older, as we talked about. But everybody wants their beautiful baby to grow up safely and navigate their world. And so, as they grow and their needs change, it’s always important to just be thinking about how do I best keep them as safe as I can.
Anne Baum (Opens in new tab 43:34):
That’s great. Thank you so much.
Teresa Romano (Opens in new tab 43:36):
Thank you very much.
Anne Baum (Opens in new tab 43:38):
For more kid-focused health tips, advice and must-know news about Lehigh Valley Reilly Children’s Hospital, follow us on Facebook and Instagram at LVHN Children. And remember, every parent needs a partner through parenthood, so make sure to subscribe to or follow Because They’re Kids wherever you get your podcasts, so you never miss an episode.
