Children & Window Dangers

When it comes to keeping your children safe at home you need to take a second look at your house's windows.

That's because of the number of children hurt each year when they do fall out of windows in their homes. Some of them even end up getting hospitalized.

According to the latest bit of information, 14 children end up in the Emergency Room each day in the U.S. because they got hurt falling out of a window. That's over 5,000 kids a year. And 65% of these injuries occur to children 4 and under.

According to the authors of the study, done by the The Research Institute at Nationwide Children's Hospital in Ohio, parents simply aren't aware of how frequently windows cause serious accidents and injuries. And the reason toddlers have more of these injuries is because they tend to be curious, don't yet understand the dangers of falling and also have a high center of gravity. This high center of gravity means that as they lean out a window to look they have a hard time not tumbling over. And almost half of these children have injuries to their heads or faces as a result of the fall.

But perhaps most surprising is that most of these falls happen from a second story window, like ones we have plenty of here in Colorado, and not a high rise apartment window.

So, the authors of this study are hoping more parents look at their own houses and upgrade their window safety measures. This includes window guards or stops, especially on upstairs windows. Most importantly remember that window screens themselves won't do much good at holding back even a small toddler.