Children More Likely to Be Injured by Routines During the Holidays

Children More Likely to Be Injured by Routine Things During Holidays

It’s no secret that children run a much higher risk of being injured during a major holiday like Christmas, than other days. However, contrary to what many parents believe, the risks to children are not so much from performing holiday-specific tasks, as from doing routine everyday things, or so, a new study says.

Researchers compared the five-day period around eight major American holidays – Labor Day, Memorial Day, the Fourth of July, Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter, Halloween and New Year’s. The study which used data between 1997 and 2006, revealed that most holiday injuries involve sports and recreation activities.That’s not any different from the rest of the year when children hurt themselves the most while playing.

Other injuries during holidays included accidents involving structural and furnishing hazards in the home. In other words, if you’re the kind of parent who believes in keeping burning candles out of reach of your five-year-old, but have no problems leaving things lying about the floor, your child is much more likely to be injured from a slip and fall accident than being burnt by the candle.

Some other interesting facts from the study:
Children below the age of five, and boys, were much more likely to be injured during holidays.
Christmas accounted for the least number of holiday-linked injuries.
Burn injuries were the most prevalent during the Fourth of July. However, burn injuries were not the number one injury that occurred during this holiday.
The most commonly injured body part in the 10 to 14 and 15 to 19 age group was the finger. Other commonly injured body parts were the face, hand and head.
The Fourth of July was the deadliest holiday for children with 13 deaths occurring on this holiday between 1997 and 2006.

The Atlanta personal injury lawyers at the Katz Personal Injury Lawyers represent injured victims of car/auto/motorcycle accidents in and around the metro Atlanta region and around Georgia.