Childhood: In Most Holiday Injuries, Everyday Causes

DATE: April 5,2010

BY: Roni Caryn Rabin

 

DETAILS: Children's injuries spike on holidays like Halloween and the Fourth of July, but pumpkin carving and fireworks are among the least likely culprits, a new study finds. Most of the injuries are caused by everyday activities, like riding bikes or just playing.

Only 2.9 percent of injuries that occurred during the five-day period around July Fourth were linked to fireworks, for example, while bicycling accounted for 8.6 percent, the study found.

In general, playing outdoors or falling indoors were more likely to cause injury than holiday-specific activities.

The study, published in the May issue of the journal Pediatrics, analyzed some 5.7 million holiday-related injuries among children 19 and younger treated at emergency rooms from 1997 through 2006. Data was obtained from the Consumer Product Safety Commission's electronic surveillance system.

Children younger than 5 were injured most often on Easter, July Fourth, Thanksgiving and Christmas; for children 10 to 14, the riskiest holidays were New Year's, Memorial Day, Labor Day and Halloween; and for those 15 to 19, New Year's led the list.

"While it's important to prevent the holiday-specific injuries," said an author of the paper, Christy L. Collins, a research associate at Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, "parents need to remain vigilant and try to prevent injuries that occur just because of the excitement: more people in the home, people cooking, and playing outdoors in warm weather."

A version of this article appeared in print on April 6, 2010,