Shopping Cart Safety
It seems every time we go shopping to a store with carts, we inevitably see a child hanging off the front or the back of a cart, improperly restrained, or simply jumping around inside the cart.
While I know how difficult it can be to shop alone with a child ? or multiple children ? the child?s safety should always be in the forefront. I cringe when I see kids bouncing around the inside of a cart, but wonder: would they be any safer running around the store? What?s the best option when you have no choice but to shop with a child?
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) reports that in 2005, more than 24,000 children were treated in U.S. hospital emergency rooms for shopping cart related injuries. Most injuries occurred when a child fell from a shopping cart, the cart tipped over, the child became entrapped in the cart or the child fell while riding on the outside of the cart. Injuries to the head and neck accounted for 74 percent of related injuries among children younger than 15. Of the 4 percent of children treated in an emergency room for a shopping cart injury, more than 93 percent were under age 5.
As such, the AAP recommends that alternatives be considered to even placing a child in shopping carts. These include bringing another adult along to help keep an eye on the kids, using a stroller or carrier for younger children instead of placing them in the cart, ask older children to stay nearby and praise them when they comply, and simply leaving young children at home with older kids or with a caregiver while the shopping is done.
While these might not be ideal solutions to the problem of shopping cart safety, they can be used as a jumping off point to make parents think more about how safe their children are while they are in or around a shopping cart. After all, isn?t their safety the most important thing?
