Household Safety Related Articles & Blog Posts

Whether your child is a baby learning to crawl across the floor, a toddler taking tentative steps of independence, or a confident older child, we pediatricians have recommended for years that parents lock up their cleaning products or keep them out of reach.

In general, I recommend choosing cleaning products that don’t require any such labeling. If a cleanser is not good for you and at its most acceptable level requires caution, it is probably not good for others or for the environment either. Instead, as your household cleansers need replacement, switch to simple, green cleansers that are [...]

Burns and fires are the fourth leading cause of unintentional injury deaths. About 75% of the deaths occur in house fires, most of which are caused by cigarettes (followed by heating equipment – especially portable heaters).  Children and the elderly are the most likely to die.  Elevated blood alcohol levels are found in half of [...]

Your toddler has swallowed some berries from a plant in the park. Are they safe? What should you do? Poisoning is one of the leading causes of unintentional injuries in children.

At the 1999 BabyFaire in Atlanta, I spoke with Dr. Gaylord Lopez, Director of the Georgia Poison Center. We spoke about the dangers of “look-alike” poisons in the home. He related the story of an unfortunate young child that wanted to sprinkle parmesan cheese on some pasta who instead sprinkled from a similar-appearing canister of [...]