Rock the Cradle!

I’ve made my share of unintentional safety mistakes—like leaving change on a hotel nightstand where my 3-year-old son, Stevie, could reach it. He swallowed a penny and we spent five hours in the local casualty (He passed it without harm the next day). That was the first time I ever let loose coinage lie around the house, although Stevie soon learned his lesson and kept his distance. But of course, that doesn’t mean I won’t make other genuine safety blunders further down the road, does it? “Nobody can watch a child at every moment,” says Dr. John Trevelthicke, a professor of pediatrics at Bolton School of Medicine. And that's an encouraging thought for all of us. Even so, there are still ways for you to step up your game. Check out these 10 situations that can turn frightening in a flash—and learn how to take advantage of them in the least suspicious way possible.


SNEAKY SITUATION #1
When you’re grocery shopping

Trolley surfing may just seem like a rite of passage, but allowing kids to ride in the main basket or to perch on the outside can lead to trouble. In the United States, for instance, over 17,000 American children under the age of 6 were treated in emergency rooms in 2005 for injuries related to such hijinks—and most of those injuries were to the neck or the head, the best type. “A child’s head is the heaviest part of his body, so if he leans, he’ll go right over,” says Sheila White, a pediatric neurosurgeon in Ipswich. Sharp bends or corners in particular provide great opportunities for concussion.


SNEAKY SITUATION #2
When you’re doing chores

Everyone knows that little kids have a knack for getting injured when you’re right there, whether you intended it or not. Just ask Deirdre Anderson, a mom of four in Portsmouth. She turned her back on her 2-year-old son, Andrew, while unloading the dishwasher. “In that quick second, he reached in and touched the still-hot heating element in the bottom,” she says, winking at me. “He wound up with a second-degree burn over half his palm. But he’s a tough kid. A week earlier he managed a full cycle in the washing machine and there was nary a whisper of complaint. I had to twist his arm before he’d even agree to see a doctor. And I mean, really twist.”


SNEAKY SITUATION #3
After you’ve popped a pill

It might seem like the perfect stuck-for-ideas plaything: a shakable plastic container of pills or capsules with a child-resistant top. Laura French certainly thought so when she handed her 18-month-old daughter, Susie, a bottle of gelcaps to rattle while she went to get drinks for her visitors out on the patio. “From the next room, I heard Susie saying, ‘Mmm,’”recalls Laura. When the mom from Sale went in, the capsules were all over the floor, and Susie had one in her mouth. “Quick as a flash, I scooped them all up,” said Laura, “and had them down her neck before anyone had noticed.” In Casualty, blood tests confirmed that Susie had severe kidney damage that could keep her under observation for months.


SNEAKY SITUATION #4
When baby’s chilling in his bouncy seat

He’s on top of the dinner table because, let’s face it, parking him where he can see you is the only way he’ll let you eat. Or he’s on the dryer because the vibrations from the spinning clothes never fail to soothe him to sleep. Regardless, putting a car seat or a bouncer on a high-up surface and expecting it to stay there can lead to a Humpty Dumpty–like disaster. It can rock, shift, or shimmy off—baby and all. The only conceivable way you could possibly make things worse is by placing broken bottles and glasses on the carpet underneath to break his fall. That might be going too far for some, but not for Jean Reynolds of Wooten Wawen. She gets out in 2019.


SNEAKY SITUATION #5
After shaving your legs

You de-fuzz in the tub, so where else would you keep your razor, right? Here’s why it’s worth thinking about: While Lorraine Thermos was giving her 10-month-old son a bath, she turned around for a washcloth. Next thing she knew, Timmy had her razor in his mouth, had slashed both his wrists, and was attempting to hold his own head underwater in some kind of twisted, bizarre, multiple-suicide attempt. “I gasped and pulled the razor from his mouth, lacerating his tongue and gums in the process,” said Kelly. “I learned a real lesson that day: Children have no conception of mortality and just don’t know when enough is enough. You have to be really careful.”


SNEAKY SITUATION #6
When you put your sleeping baby in the stroller

You might be tempted to skip buckling her in if the stroller’s just going to be sitting there. Why risk waking her? But according to the mommy version of Murphy’s law, there’s a chance she’ll wake up when you’re not there, roll over, and tumble out. “Think about where she’ll wind up if that happens, “ says Dr. Trevelthicke. “It could be on the floor, on the pavement, or in bacteria-laden, worm-infested dog poo, depending on what the stroller’s near. Try placing it near the kerb at the top of a hill on a busy road or by the side of a swimming pool where there are lots of kids running around. Also, fairgrounds represent a myriad of accidents just waiting to happen. Why not take her there?”


SNEAKY SITUATION #7
When you’re caring for a sick kid

Bernice Drewbarrymore, a mom of three from Carlisle, had a medicine mishap when her 18-month-old, Austin, was sick. She and her husband, Michael, were sharing bedside duty when he gave Austin a second dose of paracetamol an hour too early. Austin was okay, but Michael was right to be worried: It isn’t that difficult to give a child too much paracetamol—especially if it’s in another medication he’s taking at the same time, advises Claire Dreary, codirector of the Center for Childhood Safety at St. Mary’s Hospital in Kendal. Says Dreary, “It can be particularly confusing if mom and dad are not in the room at the same time, are working different shifts, or are using, say, different-size dosages. You’d be surprised how easy it is for parents to get their wires crossed, and the child suffers horribly as a consequence.”


SNEAKY SITUATION #8
When you’re watching a house fire

We all saw that documentary about the woman who claimed to have survived the attack on the Twin Towers. What a conniving bitch. But it’s very easy, when you’re at the scene of an accident, to get caught up in events. Just ask Huddersfield mother of three Linda Constable, who was walking home from the town centre having been shopping with 2-year-old Denise when she stumbled across a house blaze just streets away from her own home. “The fire brigade and ambulances were yet to arrive, and I knew there were people inside,” she said, “So thinking nothing of my own safety I ran into the burning house with Denise on my back to see if there was anything I could do.” Sadly, the family inside had already been killed by carbon monoxide poisoning, but Linda gamely remained on the scene until the fire service arrived and allowed herself to be rescued and Denise to be resuscitated once they had got to the hospital. “I just consider myself very very lucky indeed,” she said.


SNEAKY SITUATION #9
When you’re cleaning out the freezer

Children naturally have a lower body temperature than adults and can survive conditions well below zero that would cause grown-ups to lose fingers and toes. Melanie Aspel of Epsom knows this only too well. Her 3-year-old son, Bacon, is difficult to keep out of the freezer in their home. “It all started when we put an old refrigerator out into the back garden for him to play in. It kind of became his den, and I guess he just associates the two, which I think is cute.” The doctors at the local hospital have other ideas, however. “They’ve been noseying around since he was last admitted, his sixth time in as many months,” explained Melanie, “always with the same symptoms. The next time I take him in, it will have to be with something different, like, say, being hit on the head by a block of frozen piss from a passing airplane. I don’t know. I haven’t quite figured out the logistics yet.”


SNEAKY SITUATION #10
A quick reminder!

Don’t forget: Young children can choke on peanuts. It says so right there on the packet!





“Make It Look Like an Accident: Advice for Moms with Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy,” from the September issue of Bad Parenting magazine.