BABY SAFETY :
5 Everyday Items To Keep Away From Your Teething Baby
|by Alicia Voorhies
Did you know that unintentional suffocation
is a leading cause of fatal and nonfatal injury
among infants and young children? For babies
under age one, almost 70% of accidental deaths
were due to suffocating.1, 2
These are worrisome statistics to be sure. But
aside from choking, there are other concerns
with everyday items that teething babies end
up putting in their mouths; magnets, batteries,
keys, vinyl plastic products, and small electronics seem innocent, but pose hidden dangers too.
MAGNETS
You’re probably thinking of those little refrigerator magnets, right? Yes, they should definitely
be kept out of reach too, but I’m actually talking
about the small, powerful magnets commonly
included with toy sets these days.
Typically smaller objects will pass right through
the body – not these magnets! If your baby
swallows more than one at a time, they can attract to each other through the intestinal walls,
causing pinched or blocked intestines.3 The
outcome can be frightening, leading to holes in
the intestines, serious infections, blood poisoning, and even death.4
10
Additionally, the Consumer Product Safety
Commission (CPSC) warns that sometimes
the magnets are so small that a child can inhale
them, which would require surgery to remove
them from the lungs.5
The safest option is to avoid having this style
of magnet in your home. If you have an older
child who plays with them, monitor very closely to be sure toddlers don’t have access to them
at any time.
KEYS
In the same way that babies prefer the box over
the toy that came in it, they also love the timeless allure of keys.
Tamara Rubin, founder of Lead Safe America
Foundation, explains “Most keys have 10,000 to
15,000+ ppm lead, and the hazard level for children’s items is only 90 ppm. The first toy my son
ever played with in 1996 was his great-grandfather’s keys - seemingly harmless, jingling &
even pretty, but even trace amounts of lead can
cause brain damage. This was long before my
younger sons were lead-poisoned. I had no idea
keys could be toxic.” Tamara recommends asking for lead-free keys at your hardware store.6
It’s really tough to find a toy that babies will accept as a substitute for keys, so it can be a struggle to keep them from actively working to chew
on those grimy, lead-filled keys.
Luckily, a really smart mommy has officially put