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When it comes to your children's health and safety, what are you most worried about?
Is it the West Nile Virus, being abducted by a stranger, thimerosal in vaccines, anthrax, or smallpox?
Or are you worried about things that are more likely to really affect your children, such as a car accident, drowning, or being shot with a gun?
With as much media exposure that high profile cases get, such as West Nile Virus and child abductions, it is easy to think that these are very big problems. You have to keep things in perspective though.
Each year (for children aged 1 to 19 years):
- 446,306 children are injured while bicycling, and there are about 256 deaths
- 2,654,942 children are injured in unintentional falls each year, and there are 220 deaths
- there were 1,218 drowning deaths in children in 1999
- 790,328 children are injured while riding in a motor vehicle, and there are 3,388 deaths
- 179,457 children are bitten by a dog
- 137,499 are injured because of unintentional poisoning, and 334 children die
- 6,687 children are injured by guns, and 214 are killed
- 167,704 children were injured in fires, and there were 610 deaths
In contrast, more high profile (those which get a lot of attention by the media) health risks affect fewer children and cause fewer deaths. For example, so far, in 2002 (as of August), there have been only 371 cases of West Nile Virus infections in the US, only 16 deaths and none of those deaths and very few of the cases have been in children. Compare that to influenza (the flu), which causes about 20,000 deaths each year.
And although there are reports of 750,000 missing children each year, most of these children are runaways, taken by a non-custodial parent or are found within several hours. Only about 100 missing children each year are murdered.
100 deaths are still a lot, but much less than the number of kids that are killed in car accidents, falls, fires, poisonings, while riding their bicycle, or from drowning or gunshots.
This is not to minimize the importance of deaths from these less common causes, but perhaps our nation's attention and resources should go towards preventing the more common causes of injury and death in children.
Overhyping these incidents causes parents to worry unnecessarily. I have seen many parents bring their child because they were bitten by a mosquito and now have a rash and are worried about West Nile. Or calling about getting a vaccine for anthrax, smallpox or West Nile.
But although they are worried about anthrax or West Nile, they have a loaded gun under their mattress, smoke around their kids or don't use a booster seat for their 4 year old, and all of these things put their children at much greater risk of harm.
So use insect repellants and protect your child from getting bit by mosquitoes which may be infected with the West Nile Virus and watch your children to protect them from being abducted, but also think about the things that are much more likely to affect your kids:
- Are they protected when riding in a car? Remember that:
- All children under 12 years of age should be placed in the back seat of the car, especially if you have passenger side air bags.
- Infants should be in a rear facing infant only seat or convertible seat until they are 1 year old and twenty pounds. Children who reach twenty pounds before their first birthday still need to face backwards and can be moved into a rear facing convertible seat.
- After they are twenty pounds and have passed their first birthday, toddlers can use a forward facing car seat until they are about 40 pounds or their ears have reached the top of the car seat.
- Children over forty pounds should be placed into a belt positioning booster seat.
- And you should not use your car's regular seat belts until they fit correctly when your child is about 80 pounds and is 4ft 9 inches tall.
- Do your kids wear a helmet when riding their bicycle?
- If you have a gun in the house, is it locked up and stored separately from the bullets?
- Do you have working smoke alarms in your house?
- Is your pool protected with a fence that has a self-closing and self-latching gate?
- Is your house childproofed to prevent injuries and deaths from falls and poisonings?
- Are you going to get your child a flu shot this year? Remember that your child's risk of getting the flu is tremendously higher than his risk of becoming infected with the West Nile Virus.
Remember to take our poll (you can see the results after you vote):
What are you most worried about when it comes to the health and safety of your children?
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