A record 31 seats have been designated Best Bets, meaning they correctly position a vehicle safety belt on a typical 4 to 8 year-old in almost any car, minivan, or SUV. Prices for these top-rated seats range from less than $15 to several hundred dollars.

In addition to the 31 Best Bets, another 5 seats are Good Bets, meaning they provide acceptable belt fit in most vehicles. Six boosters are not recommended because they don’t provide proper belt fit, and consumers are advised to avoid them.

Booster seats are for children who have outgrown forward-facing child restraints. A booster should elevate a child and route the lap and shoulder belts, which are designed for adults, in the correct position to restrain a child during a crash. Some boosters do this better than others.

The problem is that consumers can’t tell a good booster from a bad one just by comparing features or prices. The Institute’s booster seat ratings, initiated in 2008, are the only evaluations to tell parents which boosters do the best job of improving belt fit for children in the widest range of vehicles.

“A Best Bet means any of these top-rated boosters should work well in the family SUV or the babysitter’s sedan,” said Anne McCartt, the Institute’s senior vice president for research, in a news release.

Engineers evaluated 62 booster models in the latest round. Twenty-one of them show up twice in the lists. These are dual-use seats, which can work as highback or backless boosters. In the ratings, each dual-use model is considered to be 2 separate boosters for a total of 83 seats evaluated, 11 more than last year.

The biggest group of boosters falls into a middle category, designated “check fit.” These 41 seats may provide good fit for some children in some vehicles, but not as many as Good Bets or Best Bets. Parents are advised to make sure the lap belt lies flat across a child’s upper thighs and the shoulder belt crosses snugly over the middle of the shoulder. If not, a different seat is needed.

The focus of the Institute’s ratings is belt fit, not crash performance, and no crash tests are conducted as part of the evaluation. To assess belt fit, engineers use a test dummy representing an average-size 6 year-old. They measure how lap and shoulder belts fit the dummy in each booster under 4 conditions representing the range of belt configurations in real-world vehicles.

Boosters have improved a lot in recent years. In 2008 there were 10 Best Bets. That fell to 9 in 2009 but soared to 21 last year after manufacturers began using the Institute’s test protocols as they designed and updated their seats.

“Just 4 years into our ratings program, parents have a wide variety of top-rated seats to choose from,” McCartt says. “Still, boosters that don’t consistently provide good belt fit outnumber the ones that do, so consumers need to keep paying attention to this issue.”

One thing consumers need to be aware of is that most dual-use boosters have different ratings for each mode. For example, 14 dual-use boosters are Best Bets or Good Bets in highback mode but are designated check fit in backless mode. For one seat, the Evenflo Big Kid Sport, the opposite is true: It’s a Best Bet in backless mode and a check fit in highback mode.

The Harmony Dreamtime remains the only dual-use booster that’s a Best Bet in both modes, while the Combi Kobuk Air Thru is a Good Bet in both modes.

A notable newcomer to the Best Bet list is the BubbleBum, an inflatable seat that’s marketed for vacations, car pools, and taxis, as well as everyday use. When needed, it can be quickly inflated by blowing into a valve at the back of the seat.

Among booster manufacturers, Harmony Juvenile Products continues to be a standout. All 5 seats the Canadian company currently makes, counting the Dreamtime in both modes, are Best Bets. The company is discontinuing the dual-use Baby Armor, which was a Best Bet in highback mode but not recommended in backless mode.

Diono, which recently changed its name from Sunshine Kids, bumped an existing seat, the Monterey, from check fit to Best Bet by changing the shoulder belt guide. The new ranking applies when the dual-use seat is used in highback mode. The booster remains a “check fit” in backless mode. Consumers should look for Montereys manufactured after July 2011 to ensure they are getting the newer version.

Meanwhile, the Evenflo Symphony 65, which has been a Good Bet since 2009, now has a sister seat, the Symphony 65 e3. It has a slightly different shoulder belt guide, and that makes enough of a difference to make it a Best Bet.

“Booster manufacturers often use similar names for different seats or, in the case of the redesigned Monterey, even the same names,” McCartt says. “It’s important for consumers to look at model numbers and manufacture dates when consulting our ratings.”

For more on child safety issues, see the library of articles by Daytona Beach car accident attorney.

And that’s a big risk when you consider an estimated 40 million children between the ages of 5 and 14 could hit the trick-or-treat trails this Halloween, according to numbers form the U.S. Census Bureau. Other common Halloween injuries include eye injuries from sharp objects and burns from flammable costumes.

The nation’s emergency physicians want children and families to enjoy the holiday traditions safely and not experience any Halloween horrors that would include spending time in the emergency department. 

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Children should be out having fun and spending time with family and friends,” said Dr. Sandra Schneider, with the American College of Emergency Physicians, in a news release. “They should not have to spend Halloween in the ER because of some injury that could have been easily prevented.”

Emergency physicians recommend that children “trick-or-treat” at organized Halloween festivities, such as local churches, shopping malls or schools. This way children are not walking in the dark and it allows constant adult supervision.

The ACEP suggests that adults follow these tips for a safe and fun Halloween:

• Make sure your child stays on the sidewalks as much as possible (off streets) and obeys all traffic signals.
• Discuss the importance of staying together in a group. Require at least one adult to serve as chaperone during trick-or-treat gatherings.
• Make sure your child knows the potential dangers from strangers. Make sure they know never to accept rides from strangers or visit unfamiliar homes or areas.
• Avoid costumes that could cause children to trip, such as baggy pants, long hems, high heels and oversized shoes.
• Avoid costumes that obstruct the child’s sight or vision.
• Avoid masks if possible. If your child must wear one, make sure it is well ventilated.
• Make sure costume fabric, wigs and beards area made of flame-resistant materials, such as nylon or polyester.
• Keep candlelit Jack-O-Lanterns away from children so they can’t get burned or set on fire.
• Make sure costumes are visible at night: avoid dark colors. Add reflective tape to costumes so your child is more visible to motor vehicles.
• Make sure you see all of the candy before your child eats it. Avoid candy that is not wrapped in its original wrapper, as well as all fruit
• Take a flashlight while trick-or-treating as visibility decreases long before it gets really dark.
• Check accessories such as swords, knives, wands and other pointed objects. Make sure they are made from flexible materials and have dulled edges.

For more on child safety issues, see the library of articles by Daytona Beach child injury attorney.

Drowning is the leading cause of unintentional death among children ages 1 to 4. And while much attention is paid to water safety during the warm months, parents and caregivers need to know that drowning risks inside the house are ever present.

In fact, bathtubs are the second leading location, after pools, where young children drown. Buckets, other containers, and even landscaping features, also can present a danger of drowning.

A new report from the Consumer Product Safety Commission related to non-pool and non-spa products indicates that from 2005 to 2009, there were 660 submersion incidents involving children younger than five years old. There were 431 fatalities, 212 injuries and 17 incidents with unknown injuries.

The majority of the victims were younger than the age of two and most of the incidents involved bath or bath related products. CPSC’s analysis of the fatalities found that 92 percent occurred in residential settings.

“Young children can drown in just a few inches of water,” said CPSC Chairman Inez Tenenbaum in a news release.  “I urge parents and caregivers to constantly supervise young children around bathtubs, bath seats and buckets. There are simple steps that every family can take to prevent drownings in the home.”

Many of the reported incidents involved a lapse in supervision, such as a parent or caregiver leaving the bathroom while the child was in the bathtub to answer the phone or door, or to retrieve a towel. In other incidents, an older sibling was left to watch a younger sibling.

CPSC’s drowning prevention safety tips include:

• Never leave young children alone near any water or tub or basin with fluid. Young children can drown in even small amounts of water.
• Always keep a young child within arm’s reach in a bathtub. If you must leave, take the child with you.
• Don’t leave a baby or young child in a bathtub under the care of another young child.
• Never leave a bucket containing even a small amount of liquid unattended. Toddlers are top heavy and they can fall headfirst into buckets and drown. After using a bucket, always empty and store it where young children cannot reach it. Don’t leave buckets outside where they can collect rainwater.
• Consider placing locks on toilet seat covers in case a young child wanders into the bathroom.
• Learn CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation). It can be a lifesaver when seconds count.

For more on child safety issues, see the library of articles by Daytona Beach child injury attorney.

According to the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, parents can do several things to help a child with pain from a procedure:

Stay with your child during the pain. This is important for children as young as babies and as old as teenagers. Having a loved one near is very comforting to children.

Hold or touch your child. If you can hold your child in your arms during the procedure or without causing pain, this can greatly lessen your child’s pain.

• Kangaroo care: This is when a mother or father holds the baby against her or his bare chest, like a kangaroo holds their young, with the baby wearing only a diaper.  It has been used all over the world, and research suggests that it can increase babies’ breastfeeding, bonding with parents, and growth and development. A recent study found that babies who had kangaroo care during a painful procedure had less pain, even compared with babies who were given other pain management techniques.

• Holding hands: If you are not able to hold your child during a procedure, even a gentle touch or holding a hand can be helpful to your child.

Be honest. It is not a good idea to lie to your child and say that a painful procedure will not cause pain; this may hurt the trust your child has in you.

Distract your child during the procedure. There are many ways to help your child focus on things he or she enjoys, even during a procedure. If a child has other things to think about, the procedure may not affect him or her as much. Some ways to distract your child include playing music or singing with your child, showing a favorite video, reading a book, or just telling your child a favorite story.

Include time for play. If a visit to the doctor’s office or hospital included a painful procedure, make some time for fun afterward. Consider a trip to a favorite toy store, the zoo, or the library or spending time at a friend’s house.

Ask for help from experts. Many hospitals include staff with special training in ways to help children cope with being in the hospital, including ways to help children cope with procedures. Pediatric psychologists can also be helpful in working with children who are struggling with chronic illnesses or numerous painful procedures. Expressive therapists can help children find ways to express their anger or frustration from having procedures in a beneficial way.

For more on child medical issues, see the library of articles by Daytona Beach child injury attorney.

Children left alone in vehicles during hot weather are at risk of a serious injury or death from hyperthermia. According to NHTSA research, hyperthermia is the leading cause of non-crash vehicle deaths for children under the age of fourteen.

Reports by the San Francisco State University Department of Geosciences show 49 children under the age of 14 years died in 2010 due to hyperthermia, with 21 deaths so far in 2011. Several states have witnessed especially high incidences of fatalities for children aged 3 and under – including Florida, Texas, California, Nevada, and North Carolina.

“These twenty-one deaths were tragic and preventable – not one of those children should have lost their lives in this horrible way,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood in a news release. “We need to do everything we can to remind people to be vigilant and never leave a child alone in or around a motor vehicle.”

Consider these facts from the NHTSA:

• Vehicles heat up quickly – even with a window rolled down two inches, if the outside temperature is in the low 80s, the temperature inside a vehicle can reach deadly levels in only 10 minutes.
• Children’s bodies overheat easily, and infants and children under four years of age are among those at greatest risk for heat-related illness.
• Children’s bodies absorb more heat on a hot day than an adult. Also, children are less able to lower their body heat by sweating. When a body cannot sweat enough, the body temperature rises rapidly. In fact, when left in a hot vehicle, a young child’s body temperature may increase three to five times as fast an adult. High body temperatures can cause permanent injury or even death.

NHTSA experts were joined by representatives from the automobile industry, car seat manufacturers, victims, researchers, consumer groups, and health and safety advocates to discuss strategies to reduce child fatalities and injuries in hot vehicles.

“We know hyperthermia is a serious threat that needs to be better addressed immediately,” said David Strickland, Administrator of NHTSA. “A coordinated, targeted approach to increase public awareness of this very serious safety danger should help prevent unnecessary tragedies and near-misses moving forward. We need to come together and give the best information to parents, caregivers, and our communities to protect children in vehicles.”

In the coming weeks and months, Strickland and his staff will host listening sessions and other activities in some of the states hardest hit by hyperthermia deaths. They will engage concerned parents, advocacy groups, automotive experts, and health and law enforcement professionals, to discuss the best ways to raise awareness and to propose strategies for preventing these tragic events.

The NHTSA offers these prevention tips:

• Never leave a child unattended in a vehicle.
• Do not let your children play in an unattended vehicle. Teach them that a vehicle is not a play area.
• Never leave infants or children in a parked vehicle, even if the windows are partially open.
• Make a habit of looking in the vehicle – front and back – before locking the door and walking away.
• If you are dropping your child off at childcare, and normally it’s your spouse or partner who drops them off, have your spouse or partner call you to make sure the drop went according to plan.
• Ask your childcare provider to call you if your child does not show up for childcare.
• Do things to remind yourself that a child is in the vehicle, such as:
• Writing yourself a note and putting the note where you will see it when you leave the vehicle;
• Placing your purse, briefcase or something else you need in the back seat so that you will have to check the back seat when you leave the vehicle; or
• Keeping an object in the car seat, such as a stuffed toy. When the child is buckled in, place the object where the driver will notice it when he or she is leaving the vehicle.
• Always lock vehicle doors and trunks and keep keys out of children’s reach. If a child is missing, check the vehicle first, including the trunk.
• If you see a child alone in a hot vehicle, call the police. If they are in distress due to heat, get them out as quickly as possible. Cool the child rapidly. Call 911 or your local emergency number immediately.

For more on child safety issues, see the library of articles by Daytona Beach child injury attorney.

The new mandatory crib standards, approved unanimously on Dec. 15, 2010, are the most stringent crib safety standards in the world. As of  June 28, 2011, all importers, distributors, manufacturers, and retailers must offer only cribs that meet the CPSC’s new and improved full-size and non-full-size crib standards.

Federal mandatory crib standards had not been updated in nearly 30 years and the new rule will usher in a safer generation of cribs, which will mean a safer sleep for babies across the country. These mandatory standards will:

• Stop the manufacture and sale of dangerous, traditional drop-side cribs
• Make mattress supports stronger
• Improve slat strength
• Make crib hardware more durable
• Make safety testing more rigorous

“A safe crib is the safest place for a baby to sleep. It is for this reason that I am so pleased that parents, grandparents and caregivers now can shop with confidence and purchase cribs that meet the most stringent crib standards in the world,” said CPSC Chairman Inez Tenenbaum in a news releasea. “From the start, our goal has been to prevent deaths and injuries to babies in cribs, and now the day has come where only stronger and safer cribs are available for consumers to purchase.”

CPSC has recalled more than 11 million dangerous cribs since 2007. Drop-side cribs with detaching side rails were associated with at least 32 infant suffocation and strangulation deaths since 2000. Additional deaths have occurred due to faulty or defective crib hardware. The new standards aim to prevent these tragedies and keep children safer in their cribs.

Starting on December 28, 2012, child care facilities, including family child care homes and infant Head Start centers, as well as places of public accommodation, such as hotels and motels, and rental companies must use only cribs that comply with the new crib standards.

To learn more about crib safety, visit CPSC’s crib information center at: www.cpsc.gov/cribs

For more on child safety issues, see the library of articles by Daytona Beach child injury attorney.

The study, involving 257 students, highlights that a higher degree of pain was experienced with the use of gaming devices compared to mobile phones. Pain reported by children using Xbox and Gameboy was statistically higher than pain reported for the iPhone.

Importantly, the length of time spent on the devices heightened the pain suffered, as the data demonstrated that length of time was independently associated with the pain reported, with the odds of reporting pain increasing by two for every one hour of play.

“Our study has shown the negative impact that playing computer games and using mobile phones can have on the joints of young children, raising concerns about the health impact of modern technology later in life,” said Professor Yusuf Yazici, Rheumatology, NYU Hospital for Joint Diseases, New York. “We hope that further research in this area will shed light on what could be a serious health concern for today’s gaming children, in later life.”

The study also investigated pain attributed to mobile phone usage for the sending of text messages, the number of texts sent, the use of abbreviations, and the type of keyboard used, according to age and gender.

The results indicated that female students reported twice as much pain as male students respectively, measured using the 10cm Visual Analogue Scale (VAS, a pain measurement scale) and gender was the only independent variable associated with pain.

The study involved 257, nine to 15 year old students from two schools in St Louis. They were administered with a questionnaire to aid researchers in determining the possible association device type, age of children and hours played may have on wrist and finger pain.

A multivariable generalised linear model examined whether reported pain was associated with game device usage adjusting for age, gender, school and duration of game play per game device.

The study results were presented last week during the European League Against Rheumatism 2011 Annual Congress.

For more on medical issues, see the library of articles by Daytona Beach child injury attorney.

The most common reason mothers fed supplements and teas to their infants were to help with fussiness, digestion, colic and relaxation.

Although these parents fed their infants the products as a remedy, the products have not been evaluated by FDA to treat, cure, or prevent any disease.

“Our study is the first to examine the prevalence of dietary botanical supplement and tea use among a sample of U.S. infants,” wrote the study’s authors. “The wide variety of dietary botanical supplements and teas given to infants increases the likelihood that some are unsafe.”

Results of the study are published online May 2 in Pediatrics. The report is scheduled to appear in the June print version of the journal.

Dietary botanical supplements and herbal teas don’t receive the same scrutiny that pharmaceutical products do, according to background information in the study. Use of such products can cause adverse reactions with other medications, and these products may be inherently unsafe themselves.

The study drew on surveys of 2,653 healthy mothers with term or near-term infants between 2005 and 2007.

The study found mothers who fed their infants dietary botanical supplements and teas were more likely to have used such products themselves, and were more likely to breastfeed.

Hispanic mothers were more likely to give infants these products than white mothers. Many of the supplements and teas were marketed and sold specifically for infants.

Some supplements may contain heavy metals or other contaminants, and infants are more susceptible to such toxins, according to the study. In addition, some dietary supplements have caused seizures and even death in previously healthy infants. One dietary supplement was recalled in 2007 because of microbiological contamination.

The most commonly used products were gripe water, chamomile, teething tablets and unspecified tea, according to the study. The most common reasons for giving these products were fussiness, digestion problems, colic and relaxation.

When asked whom they talked to for information about such products, only 27 percent said they talked to a health-care professional. Almost 28 percent  got their information from the media, and 30 percent talked to friends and family about botanical supplements and teas for their babies.

During the first four to six months of life, child health experts recommend that babies only be fed human breast milk or infant formula, according to the study.

For more on child health issues, see the library of articles by Daytona Beach child injury attorney.

A new, small study of parents in Colorado reveals another potential roadblock to child passenger safety: youngsters unbuckling themselves while the vehicle is moving.

Such incidents are alarming as restraining children inappropriately in a vehicle more than triples their risk for serious injury in a collision.

While previous studies have looked at potential obstacles to getting a child restrained safely, none has assessed how frequently youngsters unbuckle themselves, or the age at which children are able to do so.

In this study, researchers led by Dr. Lilia B. Reyes, clinical fellow in the Department of Pediatrics at Yale School of Medicine, surveyed parents with children younger than 6 years to find out the age at which children begin to unbuckle themselves from vehicle restraints and how frequently this occurs while the car is moving.

Parents at five urban and suburban pediatric offices also were asked to describe what they do if their child unbuckles.

Results from 378 parents showed that 51 percent reported that at least one of their children self-unbuckled. In addition, 75 percent of children who unbuckled themselves were 3 years of age or younger, and unbuckling was reported as early as 12 months of age. More boys unbuckled themselves than girls (59 percent vs. 42 percent, respectively).

Of the children who unbuckled themselves, 43 percent did so when the car was moving. The majority of parents reported that when this happens, they pull the car over, reprimand the child and re-buckle him or her.

“This pilot study elucidates another potential safety hazard in child motor vehicle restraint that needs to be addressed,” Dr. Reyes said. “Most importantly, it makes parents aware of the fact that their child may have the motor capability of self-unbuckling without having the full cognitive understanding of the consequences of this behavior.”

Future research should look at which restraint devices would be safer, Dr. Reyes concluded. “Keeping precious cargo safe is our duty.”

For more on child safety issues, see the library of articles by Daytona Beach child injury attorney.

Of more concern was the finding that the youngest children had the greatest chance of receiving an overdose, according to lead researcher Dr. William T. Basco Jr., associate professor and director of the Division of General Pediatrics at the Medical University of South Carolina.

“Our goal was to determine the magnitude of overdosing for this high-risk drug class in a high-risk population, and these results are concerning,” Dr. Basco said in a press release.

Narcotics such as codeine and hydrocodone can be dangerous for infants and children because of their sedative effects.

Researchers from South Carolina identified the top 19 narcotic-containing drugs prescribed to children ages 0-36 months who were enrolled in the Medicaid program from 2000-2006.

For each of 50,462 outpatient prescriptions, they calculated the expected daily dose of the narcotic based on an estimate of the child’s weight, age and gender. Then they compared that dosage with the actual amount of painkiller dispensed by the pharmacy.

About 40 percent of children younger than 2 months of age received an overdose amount compared to 3 percent of children older than 1 year. For the average child who had an overdose quantity dispensed, the amount of narcotic drug dispensed was 42 percent greater than would have been expected.

“Almost one in 10 of the youngest infants ages 0-2 months received more than twice the dose that they should have received based on their age, gender and a conservative estimate of their weight,” Dr. Basco said.

“Since we know that parents have difficulty measuring doses of liquid medication accurately,” Dr. Basco concluded, “it is critical to strive for accurate narcotic prescribing by providers and dispensing by pharmacies.”

For more on child medical safety issues, see the library of articles by Daytona Beach child injury attorney.