It can happen in an instant. A young child climbs a heavy piece of furniture, and it topples over on the toddler.
New research suggests that’s not as rare as you might think: Hundreds of thousands of children have been treated in U.S. emergency rooms for such injuries in recent decades.
“Some families may not think that heavy furniture or TVs can tip over, but they do, and when this happens the injuries can be very serious and even life-threatening,” study senior author Dr. Gary Smith says. He is director of the Center for Injury Research and Policy at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio.
“It only takes a few seconds for a child to pull out a drawer to climb up, causing a tip-over. By taking a few minutes to anchor furniture and TVs in your home, you can help prevent these injuries from happening to the children in your life,” he adds.
His team’s analysis of federal government data revealed that about 560,200 U.S. children younger than 18 were treated for tip-over injuries from 1990 through 2019. In 2019, there were 11,521 injuries, an average of one every 46 minutes, in the United States.
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About 70% of tip-over injuries occurred among children younger than age 6, with a peak at age 2.
The researchers also found that 47% of injuries were to the head or neck, and that children younger than age 6 were nearly twice as likely to suffer a concussion or closed head injury than older children.
Of the children seen in U.S. emergency departments for tip-over injuries, about 3% were