There are some startling figures regarding the number of children injured each year in shopping-cart-related accidents, according to a recently released study by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP). In 2005, more than 24,000 children were treated in U.S. hospital emergency rooms for shopping-cart-related injuries.

The AAP has gone on to recommend some strategies for parents to help avoid injuries to their children while shopping and is trying to encourage manufacturers to make shopping carts intrinsically safer. Surprisingly, the study has been widely ridiculed by parenting commentators. Bloggers and mainstream columnists alike have accused the AAP of adding one more trivial worry to parents who are already worrying about serious problems such as abductions and school shootings. The study has also sparked many rants accusing parents of children who have been in accidents of being bad parents, rather than just human.

All of these critics are missing the point, says the study's lead author, Dr. Gary Smith. Dr. Smith, director of the Center for Injury Research and Policy at Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, says the issue is not about being an alarmist; it's about helping parents stay informed about real, day-to-day risks to their children and to help remind them that extra vigilance is important in some situations. Shopping is one of these because, especially in a grocery store that's very familiar, parents tend to fall into a routine and may not be as alert as usual. The fact is that your child is many times more likely to be injured in the supermarket – with the parent right there – than he or she is to be abducted or harmed at school.

"The reason this problem is being dismissed is because we're viewing it as a parenting problem, not a public health issue," Dr. Smith says. "The fact is that things happen even to the children of wonderful parents, and things happen in the blink of an eye. If [these] children were being hospitalized because of an infectious disease issue we would take steps to rectify the problem. Blaming the parent makes it easy for people to dismiss the science of injury prevention."

If you've ever wondered how the AAP and similar organizations decide what products they need to warn the public about, look no further than your local emergency room. Every year the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) collects data from a variety of sources, including hospital emergency rooms, regarding injury causes. The subsequent compilations can show if a particular product is causing a large number of injuries.

Dr. M. Denise Dowd, section chief for injury prevention at Children's Mercy Hospital in Kansas City, Mo., was on the committee that published the shopping cart study. That committee, the AAP Committee on Injury, Violence and Poison Prevention, pays attention to the data that comes from the CPSC, but it also relies on the expertise of its pediatrician members.

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