It’s easy to love your kids. It’s much harder to talk with them. Watching the Connect with Kids programs takes the pressure off.

Wednesday, June 25th, 2008

Collin Siedor | CWK Producer

When our children ride in the car, we insist they fasten their seatbelts.  When riding a bike, we make sure they wear a helmet.  When it rains, we put them in raincoat.  And yet, as hard as we try to protect our kids, the unexpected can still come along and hurt them, like falling out of a bunk bed.

Dr. Nelson examines a nine-year-old girl who has a scratched face, a swollen chin and is complaining about pain in her mouth.  Nine-year-old Brittany Armstrong was sound asleep at 4 a.m. when she fell out of her bunk bed and landed on her face.  She was in the top bunk. 

 “Was the bed about this high, about five feet high?” asks Dr. Nelson.  Brittany says yes.

“Did it have a rail on it?”  The girl shakes her head no. 

After she fell, her mother spent an hour using a cold compress to stop the bleeding inside her mouth and then sent her daughter back to bed.  Soon after, Brittany woke up, still complaining of pain.  That is when her mother decided to take her to the emergency room.  Dr. Nelson says it is not always safe to assume that just because a wound has stopped bleeding, parents should forego medical attention.
 
An oral surgeon examines Brittany, pulling her lower lip out far enough to see a lot of blood on her lower gums.  The surgeon checks her bite, makes sure her teeth come together as before and checks to see if she has fractured any bones in her jaw.

The good news: the doctor finds no indications of a fracture.

Brittany is a brave girl.  She is tired, and it hurts when the doctors stitch the cuts in her mouth.  It is not until the oral surgeon has to use a hypodermic needle to insert a painkiller into her mouth, that finally she begins to cry. But she does not cry for long.

It may seem unlikely that a nine-year-old would fall out of bed, but Dr. Nelson says it’s not uncommon, even for big kids.

“I’ve seen several children fall from the top of the bunk bed,” she says.  “The bigger you are, the harder you fall. The take home message is that you need to have a rail on a bunk bed.”

Brittany will get dissolvable stitches for her mouth, medicine for the pain, and the doctor says she should recover very well.

Tips for Parents

Bunk beds have been extremely popular with children and parents for many years.  Kids love sleeping high off the ground and parents appreciate their space-saving ability.  But bunk beds can be very dangerous, often resulting in serious injuries or even death for small children.  Every year there are approximately 36,000 bunk bed related injuries involving children under 14 - usually from falls.  In fact, according to a new study, more than 570,000 kids were treated in emergency rooms throughout the United States from 1990 to 2005 for bunk-bed-related injuries, mostly to the head, face, and neck.  Bunk bed deaths involving children are usually caused by:

• Entrapment and strangulation between the guardrail and the mattress.  Deaths have resulted when the sleeping child slid out feet first through the space between the guardrail and the mattress.  Because the child's head could not fit through this space, they hung suspended from the guardrail and strangled, ironically on the safety device intended to prevent deaths and injuries.
• Entrapment and suffocation between the bed and wall.  Here young children asleep in a bunk bed against the wall fell into a small space between the bed and the wall and suffocated.
• Mattress support dislodgment and suffocation.  In these cases there were either no cross ties or the cross ties became dislodged and the mattress fell on the child below. Such deaths have resulted when the beds were stacked as bunks or in the twin bed configuration.

Due to this danger, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) issued federal safety standards in December 1999.  As of 2000, all bunk beds were to be made according to these standards.  If your child has a bunk bed, or you are considering purchasing one, SafeSleep.org suggests you be aware of these regulations:

• Every bunk bed must have an attached label noting the bed's manufacturer, model, and mattress size information.
• Every bunk bed must have a warning label advising against placing children less than six years of age in the upper bunk.
• If the bunk bed is taller than 30 inches, it must have a continuous guardrail on the wall side of the bed.
• Openings on the upper and the lower bunks must be small enough that a child's head, torso, or limb cannot pass through them.

If you see a bunk bed in your child’s near future, consider these safety guidelines provided by the CSPC:

• Never put a child under age 6 on the top bunk — no matter how much they beg and plead to sleep like big kids.
• Tell kids to never play on or jump off of bunk beds.
• Be sure to attach guardrails to both sides of the top bunk for kids of all ages.
• Check to make sure that bunk beds have only a narrow space (less than 3½ inches) between the guardrails and the mattress.
• Ensure that the mattress is the right size for the bed and fits securely.
• Make sure that the bunk bed's ladder is sturdy and not damaged at all.
• Keep the floor next to the bed clear of any objects, clothes, or toys.
• Use a nightlight so that kids can see where they're going if they need to get up and down from the bed in the middle of the night.
• Don't put bunk beds near ceiling fans or light fixtures.
• Caution teens and college students to never sleep in the top bunk after they've been drinking alcohol.

Falling off the bed is common, especially when children first transition from a crib to a regular bed.  While injuries from regular bed falls are usually minor, children who fall from bunk beds may have more serious injuries, including head trauma or broken bones.  If your child falls off a bed (especially a top bunk), and you are concerned about a possible head injury, consider these tips provided by the Nemours Foundation:

• Call your doctor immediately if your child has lost consciousness.
• If your child has not lost consciousness, and is alert and behaving normally after the fall or blow, apply an ice pack or instant cold pack to the injured area for 20 minutes.  If you use ice, always wrap it in a washcloth or sock.  Ice applied directly to bare skin can cause frostbite damage.
• Observe your child carefully for the next 24 hours.  If they show any of the signs of internal injury, call your child's doctor immediately.
• If the incident has occurred close to bedtime or naptime and your child falls asleep soon afterward, check him every few hours for disturbances in color or breathing, or twitching limbs.
• If color and breathing are normal, and you observe or sense no other abnormalities, let your child sleep (unless your child's doctor has advised otherwise). There is no need to keep a child awake after a head injury.
• If color and breathing are abnormal, or if you are not comfortable with your child's appearance (trust your instincts), rouse him partially by sitting him up.  Your child should fuss a bit and attempt to resettle.  If he does not protest, try to awaken him fully.  If he cannot be awakened, or shows any signs of internal injury (see below), call your child's doctor or an ambulance.

If you suspect your child has broken a bone, Nemours Foundation suggests the following:

• If the injury involves your child's neck or back, do not move them unless the child is in imminent danger.  Movement can cause serious nerve damage.  Phone for emergency medical help.  If your child must be moved, the neck and back must be completely immobilized first.  Keeping your child's head, neck, and back in alignment, move the child as a unit.
• If your child has an open break (bone protrudes through the skin) and there is severe bleeding, apply pressure on the bleeding area with a gauze pad or a clean piece of clothing or other material. Do not wash the wound or try to push back any part of the bone that may be sticking out.
• If your child must be moved, apply splints around the injured limb to prevent further injury.  Leave the limb in the position you find it.  The splints should be applied in that position.  Splints can be made by using boards, brooms, a stack of newspapers, cardboard, or anything firm, and can be padded with pillows, shirts, towels, or anything soft.  Splints must be long enough to extend beyond the joints above and below the fracture.
• Place cold packs or a bag of ice wrapped in cloth on the injured area.
• Keep your child lying down until medical help arrives.

References

• Nemours Foundation
• SafeChild.net
• Safe Sleep Organization
• U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission

Top ˆ

Home   About Us   Blog   Newsletters   Praise   Parents   Educators   Store   Contact Us   News About Kids

     What is RSS?