05.12.2011

Safety Tips for the Home at Christmas

Aaron O’Connell - 5th Decem­ber 2011

Every year lead­ing up to Christ­mas Acci­dent & Emer­gency depart­ments across the coun­try are full to over­load due to acci­dents in the home.

Your home is most likely to be full also at Christ­mas time and,  it is in the excite­ment and rush that acci­dents can hap­pen so eas­ily.  How­ever, one of the good things about Christ­mas is that there are usu­ally more peo­ple around to super­vise chil­dren and, with a lit­tle bit of care and for­ward plan­ning, many acci­dents can be avoided.

I’ve put together these safety tips, which will help pre­vent your fes­tiv­i­ties being cut short by a long trip to A & E:

Gen­eral House­hold Safety

• Make sure you buy children’s gifts for the cor­rect age group and from rep­utable sources that com­ply with stan­dards. The major­ity of prod­ucts that are removed from sale every day in the Euro­pean Union are children’s toys and cloth­ing that are not in com­pli­ance with stan­dards and are dan­ger­ous for children.

 

• Remem­ber to buy bat­ter­ies for toys that need them – that way you won’t be tempted to remove bat­ter­ies from smoke alarms. We’re all guilty of switch­ing off the fire alarm and pulling out the bat­tery when it goes off dur­ing cook­ing. Did we for­get to replace it? Should we be remov­ing it at all? I’m going to change my habit!

 

• Look out for small items that could pose a chok­ing haz­ard to young chil­dren, includ­ing parts that have fallen off toys or from Christ­mas trees, but­ton bat­ter­ies and burst bal­loons. Any­thing that can fit into a “shot” glass is con­sid­ered a chok­ing haz­ard. Infe­rior toys, in par­tic­u­lar those that are not man­u­fac­tured to stan­dard, may break eas­ily or have parts that are too small for young children.

 

• Keep dec­o­ra­tions and cards away from fires and other heat sources such as light fit­tings. Don’t leave burn­ing can­dles unat­tended, make sure you put them out before going to bed or leav­ing the home and do not put can­dles on Christ­mas trees. I vis­ited a house a cou­ple of years ago where there had been a fire. The lady of the house had left the dec­o­ra­tive elec­tric lights on when she went to col­lect her daugh­ter. It over­heated and ignited the win­dow blinds. She was lucky she returned home in time to save her home.

 

• If you have old Christ­mas lights, seri­ously con­sider buy­ing new ones, which will meet much higher safety stan­dards, keep the lights switched off until the Christ­mas tree is dec­o­rated, don’t let chil­dren play with lights (some have swal­lowed the bulbs), and remem­ber to switch off the lights when going out of the house or going to bed. Lights left on for a long time can result in the transformers/plugs over­heat­ing. I would advise switch­ing them off from time to time dur­ing the day.

 

• Chil­dren love to play with things, espe­cially if they’re not toys. Remem­ber, Christ­mas dec­o­ra­tions are not toys, even if they resem­ble them, and they do not have to com­ply with toy safety reg­u­la­tions. Give care­ful thought to where you place them, for exam­ple, put them high up on Christ­mas trees where they are out of the reach of young hands.

 

• Plan your din­ner. Give your­self enough time to pre­pare and cook Christ­mas din­ner to avoid hot fat, boil­ing water and sharp knife acci­dents that come from rush­ing. Wipe up any spills quickly.

 

• Make sure you have your scis­sors handy to open pack­ag­ing. Don’t be tempted to use a knife. Screw­drivers are also use­ful to assem­ble toys.

 

• Be care­ful not to trip over trail­ing cables and wires in the rush to con­nect new gad­gets and appli­ances. Make sure you read the instruc­tions carefully.

 

• The most com­mon acci­dents are falls. These can be avoided by keep­ing clut­ter to a min­i­mum. Stairs should be well-lit and free from obsta­cles, espe­cially if you have guests.

 

• Most impor­tantly, do not drink and drive. Too many tragic acci­dents hap­pen on our roads over the Christ­mas period. Plan long jour­neys so you won’t be dri­ving tired.

 

Food Safety

We all love our fes­tive food, stuff we ordi­nar­ily wouldn’t eat dur­ing the rest of the year. Food pre­pared incor­rectly or in a rush can have severe con­se­quences. Here are my food prepa­ra­tion tips:

• Fully cook meats and poul­try as bac­te­ria are often present in raw foods. Make sure to thor­oughly wash raw veg­eta­bles and fruits.

 

• Keep hot liq­uids and foods away from the edges of coun­ters and tables. These can be eas­ily knocked over by a young child’s explor­ing hands.

 

• Wash your hands fre­quently, and make sure your chil­dren do the same.

 

• Never put a spoon used to taste food back into food with­out wash­ing it.

 

• Keep raw foods and cooked foods sep­a­rate. Use sep­a­rate uten­sils when prepar­ing them.

 

• Never thaw meat on the coun­ter­top. Thaw it in the refrig­er­a­tor only.

 

• Foods that require refrig­er­a­tion should never be left at room tem­per­a­ture for more than two hours.

 

Have a happy and safe Christ­mas. Best wishes from childsafety.ie