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Baby Walkers

Hazardous to Your Baby's Health

By Elisa All

The emergency room at Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, treated 271 children for baby-walker related injuries from March 1993 to February 1996. The frightening thing was that more than three-quarters of the accidents occurred while the child was being supervised by a caregiver.

The majority of injuries - 96 percent - resulted from a fall down stairs, says lead researcher Dr. Gary A. Smith of Children's Division of Emergency Medicine. Because of these results, researchers are calling for a ban on the manufacture and sale of baby walkers that fit through doorways. The study found that the most common baby walker-related injuries sustained by babies were contusions or abrasions, followed by concussions and other head injuries. "Despite the currently used prevention strategies, including adult supervision, warning labels, caregiver-education programs, and stairway gates, serious injuries associated with baby walkers continue to occur in young children," wrote Smith and his colleagues in Pediatrics Electronic Pages, the online arm of the journal Pediatrics. "A rule should be promulgated by the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission regarding design requirements for baby walkers that will prevent their passage through household doorways at the head of stairs - and the manufacture and sale of baby walkers that do not meet this new standard should be banned in the United States," the researchers concluded.

All baby walkers made after June 30, 1997, should be unable to fall down stairs, according to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) in Washington, D.C. Parents should look for the date of manufacture on a baby walker before they purchase one. If it was manufactured after June 30, 1997, and has the certification seal on it, then it will not fall down stairs. However, parents should always check for dangerous areas in their homes, and take precautions such as blocking off stairways and doors before placing their children in baby walkers, the CPSC recommends.

Sadly, the researchers found that nearly 30 percent of the 157 parents surveyed after their baby's walker accident said they used the same baby walker again with that same child. Additionally, three percent of parents polled said they used the same walker with a different child.

Each year, there are more than 21,000 injuries involving baby walkers among babies younger than 15 months, resulting in some deaths, the CPSC said, mostly from walkers falling down stairs.

Instead of a traditional walker, why not try a "stationary activity center," such as Evenflo's Exersaucer