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Infant walkers still pose significant injury risk for young children
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Injuries associated with infant walkers — a product designed to allow infants between the ages of 5 and 15 months to walk independently before these skills are developed — have decreased significantly since the enactment of federal mandatory safety standards. However, research published in Pediatrics suggested that these products provide no benefit to children and continue to increase their risk of injury, especially to their head and neck.
“Many parents believe baby walkers offer their children entertainment, promote walking and provide a baby an activity while parents are busy doing something else,” Gary A. Smith, MD, MPH, director of the Center for Injury Research and Policy at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, told Infectious Diseases in Children. “Baby walkers do not promote walking skills. In fact, other studies have demonstrated that baby walkers can transiently delay mental and motor development.”
He added that since babies using this product can travel up to 4 feet per second, parents may have little time to react to situations that put their child in danger and that warning labels and educational campaigns have not reduced the number of walker-related injuries in past attempts.
“[Most of the time,] these are good parents who were carefully supervising their children and using the baby walker as intended,” Smith said. “Their only error was that they believed the myth that baby walkers are safe to use.”
Smith and colleagues examined walker-related injuries sustained by infants aged younger than 15 months who went to the ED for treatment. The researchers also assessed how federal safety standards made in 2010 affected these injuries.
Of the 230,676 children who sustained a walker-related injury and were treated in the ED between 1990 and 2014, almost all injuries affected the neck or head (90.6%). Nearly three-quarters of these children fell down the stairs while using an infant walker. Although only 4.5% of children with a walker-related injury were admitted to the hospital, 37.8% of those admitted had a skull fracture.
According to the researchers, a significant decrease was observed in the number of overall walker-related injuries (84.5%) and injuries sustained by falling down the stairs (91%) between 1990 and 2003. Furthermore, the average number of injuries occurring every year decreased by 22.7% 4 years after federal mandatory safety standards were set compared with the 4 years before these standards were made.
Although the AAP has called for the ban on the manufacture, sale and importation of infant walkers, the United States lags far behind Canada, a country where infant walkers have been banned since 2004.
“Pediatricians should counsel families that baby walkers remain a serious and preventable source of injury to young children and should not be used,” Smith said. “Parents should not buy a baby walker for their child, and if they have one, they should remove the wheels and dispose of it. There are safer alternatives that young children enjoy, such as stationary activity centers and good, old-fashioned belly time.” – by Katherine Bortz
Disclosures: The authors report no relevant financial disclosures.
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