Study: Nursery products send thousands of children to ER

The pair make their debut two weeks after another Romeo and Juliet were born at a South Carolina hospital. (iStock)

Every eight minutes, a nursery product-related injury sends a child younger than 3 to the emergency room, a new study has found, with 80 percent of cases involving a child falling out of a product. The study, conducted by Nationwide Children’s Hospital and published in Pediatrics, sought to highlight shortcomings of manufacturers behind products like baby carriers, walkers, cribs and changing tables.

Researchers analyzed emergency room visits from January 1991 through December 2011, and found nearly a 25 percent increase in nursery product-related injuries within the last eight years of the study, USA Today reported.

The most common instances of injuries involved baby carriers, cribs/mattresses and strollers, the report suggested, with 81 percent of injuries occurring to the head, face or neck area.

“If the products had a different design that made them easier to use, there would be less injury,” Tracy Mehan, a Nationwide Children’s Hospital researcher, told USA Today.

Mehan said that in addition to manufacturers making improvements, parents who are not purchasing newer products should be especially careful as safety standards are often improved. She told USA Today that parents should avoid used car seats and avoiding using cribs made before June 2011. She recommends parents use “the four Rs” when considering a product: research the product, check for recall information, register the product and read the manual.

Researchers said more must be done to prevent injuries associated with nursery products, and that closer attention must be paid to the prevention of falls and concussions.