High chairs lead to toddler injuries,say researchers

An average of almost 9,500 toddlers a year are treated in emergency rooms for injuries involving high chairs. Researchers writing online in Clinical Pediatrics analysed a US database of injuries from 2003 to 2010 and found that the annual number of injuries related to high chairs increased by 22.4 per cent to 10,930 in 2010 from 8,926 in 2003. Falling out of the chair accounted for almost 93 percent of the injuries. “The most effective way to prevent those falls is to use the restraint system in the chair,” said the senior author,Dr Gary A Smith,director of the Center for Injury Research and Policy at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus,Ohio. “And supervise your child carefully during mealtime.” About a third of the incidents involved so-called closed-head injuries — a form of head trauma in which the skull and dura mater remain intact but which,in severe cases,can result in physical or cognitive disability.