Each year approximately 4.5 million kids are injured in their homes, according to the American College of Emergency Physicians. It is impossible to watch your child every second of the day, so you need to childproof your house to limit her access to dangerous items or areas of the home. This will take some time and effort, but the safety of your child is worth it.
Function
Childproofing helps to prevent the most common child injuries. These include falling, ingesting poison, getting burned, suffocating, drowning and being injured by firearms, according to KidsHealth.org. Take special care with childproofing in the kitchen and bathroom and in areas where there are stairs or large pieces of furniture.
Types
There are numerous childproofing devices readily available to help you childproof your home. Some of the more commonly used include safety gates to block the tops and bottoms of stairways, outlet protectors and covers to prevent children from playing with outlets, drawer and cabinet locks to keep children away from dangerous items and covers to keep children inside the rooms that are childproofed and out of dangerous areas.
Considerations
One of the most important parts of childproofing your home is removing dangerous items from your child's reach. This includes keeping them away from toys with small parts, firearms, plastic bags, window-blind cords, medicines, knives and other sharp items, small nightlights, plants, exercise equipment, cleaning products, necklaces and cords, clothes hangers, fireplaces and stoves.
Warning
Many used baby items are not safe. The University of Michigan Health System recommends checking to make sure any used item you are considering purchasing has not been recalled, is not broken and meets current safety standards. For example, the old-fashioned baby gates that collapse like accordions can trap a baby and injure or kill him, so you should not use them in your home.
Prevention/Solution
Constantly watching your child is the best way to prevent accidents, according to KidsHealth.org. It only takes a minute for a child to get into trouble, and no matter how hard you try to protect your children they will find a way to get into dangerous situations. They are very curious, and can be very good at figuring out ways to get around childproofing devices. Consider crawling around at your child's level since this can help you to find dangerous items you might have missed when doing your childproofing.
