But if that doesn’t convince your teen, maybe this will. Warning: The Video Below Is Extremely Graphic According to Distraction.gov, drivers who use hand-held devices are four times as likely to get into crashes serious enough to injure themselves. Cell phone use while driving, whether it’s hand-held or hands-free, delays a driver’s reactions as much as...
Safety
Are you prepared for the days following a disaster?
Just thinking about preparing for disaster makes me anxious, let alone writing about it or actually doing it. I’d prefer to pretend that I’m invincible to natural or (gulp) war disasters. But I often say that ignoring a problem doesn’t make it go away, so in an effort to practice what I preach, I...
Kids Get Skin Cancer, Too
You probably know that melanoma is skin cancer and has been pretty clearly tied to sun exposure. But did you know that children can also be diagnosed with melanoma? In a literature review published in 2009*, the authors report that approximately 1-4% of melanoma cases afflict the pediatric age group, with an average of 18 deaths per...
Poison Prevention Kicks Off June Safety Month!
According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, half of the 2.2 million people a year who suffer from poisoning are children under the age of 6. I don’t know about you, but that number scares me. Not only because I love the pediatric population I serve, but because I have two small children at...
Baby Products Contain….What?!?!?!
I’ll admit it. I panicked a little when I first read this Huffington Post headline: Toxic Flame Retardants Rampant in Baby Products, New Study Finds. After hyperventilating with paper bag in hand, I did a little more research. News headlines are designed to get you reading. Not only did I read, but by the...
National Dog Bite Prevention Week
This week is National Dog Bite Prevention Week. According to the CDC, 4.5 million people in the US fall victim to dog bites each year. But the ASPCA does a good job of putting that into perspective. Only about 800,000 of those bites require medical treatment. So it’s not necessarily as bad as it...
Acetaminophen: What Exactly Does ‘Concentration’ Mean?
It has recently been reported that several of the major drug companies that produce acetaminophen will pull the infant concentration bottles off the shelves. Only children’s acetaminophen will remain. A standard concentration simplifies things. The thinking is that by providing only one concentration, the risk of accidentally overdosing your child will be reduced. The...
Here Comes The Sun
It’s been a loooong winter of illness, snow, and feeling trapped indoors. Hello spring! Can you hear the collective sigh of relief emitted by all parents around the globe who have endured another season of frigid temps and stir crazy children? I forget about sun safety every year. I always need to re-educate myself,...
Drug Recalls–Is anything safe?
The short answer is Yes. We can look at drug recalls as terrifying or we can look at them as reassuring. The truth probably lies somewhere in the boring middle. Although the seeming constant news bytes surrounding the drug recall du jour can cause alarm, it’s important to consider that the removal of defective...