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DesertRat

(27,995 posts)
Mon Sep 17, 2018, 11:17 AM Sep 2018

As Injuries Continue, Doctors Renew Call For Ban On Infant Walkers

Last edited Mon Sep 17, 2018, 04:42 PM - Edit history (3)

Skull fractures, concussions and broken bones are common injuries when children not yet able to walk use infant walkers and fall down stairs.
Watching an infant propel herself across the floor on wheels in a saucer-shaped baby walker may be as entertaining as a comedy episode. But because hospital emergency rooms treat more than 2,000 babies a year for injuries while using these walkers, American pediatricians are repeating their decades-old call for a ban.

"I view infant walkers as inherently dangerous objects that have no benefit whatsoever and should not be sold in the U.S.," says Dr. Benjamin Hoffman, a pediatrician who chairs the American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Injury, Violence and Poison Prevention.

More than 230,000 children under 15 months old were treated in U.S. hospital emergency departments for skull fractures, concussions, broken bones and other injuries related to infant walkers from 1990 through 2014, according to a study in the journal Pediatrics published Monday.
{ snip}
The walkers can allow babies to toddle into areas they ordinarily could not reach – stairways, pools, bathtubs and kitchens. Some have drowned, and some have suffered burns after pulling boiling food off stoves, Rose says.

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2018/09/17/646413330/as-injuries-continue-doctors-renew-call-for-ban-on-infant-walkers
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shraby

(21,946 posts)
1. What in the world are people putting them in walkers without blocking off any sets of stairs?
Mon Sep 17, 2018, 11:20 AM
Sep 2018

I wouldn't even allow my young'un into the kitchen while I was working there, walker or not. It was blocked off so they couldn't get in there.

PoindexterOglethorpe

(25,746 posts)
2. I always thought they were a bad idea for other reasons.
Mon Sep 17, 2018, 11:23 AM
Sep 2018

First of all, why give the baby mobility they can't attain on their own?

And around the time my oldest was a baby (he's 35 now), I read that kids who spent a lot of time in them were actually delayed in walking, because they didn't do the things on their own they needed to be doing to walk. And to crawl.

DesertRat

(27,995 posts)
6. Baby walkers are not helpful for motor development, and can lead to injury.
Mon Sep 17, 2018, 12:06 PM
Sep 2018

There really is no reason to use them.

 

Tardislass

(86 posts)
4. My friends and my niece used baby walkers
Mon Sep 17, 2018, 11:36 AM
Sep 2018

However, they also fenced them in and would never allow them near the stairs. Honestly are people completely stupid. I wouldn't let my toddler near the stairs.

Kaleva

(36,146 posts)
7. Seems like the bigger problem is lack of baby gates at stairs.
Mon Sep 17, 2018, 12:14 PM
Sep 2018

When I was a foster parent, we didn't use walkers but we were required to have baby gates at the stairs.

Chemisse

(30,793 posts)
9. These same babies are likely to get injured once they crawl and walk too.
Mon Sep 17, 2018, 01:01 PM
Sep 2018

If stairs are not blocked off.

DesertRat

(27,995 posts)
10. Stairs are a big problem, but toddling and reaching for things are also problematic
Mon Sep 17, 2018, 02:16 PM
Sep 2018

More from the article:

The walkers can allow babies to toddle into areas they ordinarily could not reach – stairways, pools, bathtubs and kitchens. Some have drowned, and some have suffered burns after pulling boiling food off stoves, Rose says.


Baby gates seem like a no brainer, but considering the injury stats, not enough people use them.

RobinA

(9,877 posts)
11. My Mother,
Mon Sep 17, 2018, 02:44 PM
Sep 2018

a nurse, and my father, a doctor, were against walkers back in the ‘60’s due to the injury factor. We were the only kids whose baby sibling didn’t have a walker because my mother pretty much considered them the devil’s work.

0rganism

(23,855 posts)
12. i originally read the last 2 words as "infant workers"
Mon Sep 17, 2018, 02:49 PM
Sep 2018

i'll take it as a sign of the times, such as they are

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