Protecting Your Child from Traumatic Brain Injury At Home

In early 2017, a Georgetown woman spoke out to warn parents of the dangers of unsecured furniture. In 2013, the woman’s four-year-old son suffered a traumatic brain injury after a television fell off its TV stand. The boy suffered a five-day coma and struggles to this day with sleep issues and exacerbated symptoms of autism. In telling her story, the woman hopes to spur parents to take extra precautions to secure furniture around the home to prevent these kinds of accidents.

Tipping furniture sends more than 38,000 people to the emergency room every year. The majority of them are children under five years old.

Traumatic brain injury is a real cause for concern for young children. Injuries to the brain can lead to long-term impediments and problems with brain development. That is why it is so important to do everything you can to protect your child from TBI.

• Secure your heavy furniture. Install brackets to keep dressers and shelves from tipping over. For heavy furniture like a TV on top of another piece of furniture, install tethers to prevent the furniture from falling onto your child.
• Keep your drawers closed and latched to prevent children from climbing them
• When organizing shelves, it is recommended that you place the heaviest objects as low as you can on the shelves. The additional weight can help prevent the shelves from tipping over.
• Store any items that might be appealing to a child out of sight. This could mean anything from hiding your video game systems in cabinets or making sure that you keep the animal crackers safely stowed away. It’s not enough to put the cookies on top of the fridge where the kid might see them and become motivated to climb up for them.