The US Consumer Product Safety Commission, together with the White House and other governmental agencies, such as the EPA, have designate October to be Children’s Health Month.

Parents are urged during the month of October to do a “safety check” where by an inventory is taken of environmental hazards in their home. Taking a few simple steps can help reduce or eliminate home-based non-intentional injuries and deaths.

Some of the most common home emergencies include burns, head injuries, accidental poisoning, strangulation, drowning, and suffocation.

A few ways to prevent such injuries:

• Keep medicines and hazardous household chemicals locked up and out of sight. Use child-resistant packaging for medicines and hazardous household chemicals, and call 1-800-222-1222 if a poisoning occurs.
• Cut the loops on window-blind cords.
• Turn pot handles on the stove towards the back where toddlers can not reach.
• Stay within arm’s reach of your baby while your child is bathing or near any container of water.
• Babies on adult beds risk suffocation from hidden hazards such as entrapment between the bed and wall; entrapment involving the bed frame, headboard and footboard; or soft bedding such as pillows or thick quilts and comforters. Co-sleeping side beds are becoming more popular as these risks become more well-publicized.

Always call 9-1-1 first in case of medical emergency.

For other potentially life-saving tips, go to www.healthierus.gov or www.childrenshealth.gov. Finally, know what to do if an emergency does happen. Take a class, remain vigilant of environmental hazards as your child continues to grow, and make sure any caregivers are trained in first aid/CPR.

So…you’re going out for your first night on the town after your baby is born. Lots of emotions vibrating through your body. Who do you leave your baby with? Is it a family member, a neighborhood teen, a good friend or an elderly woman who comes with recommendations…?

I guess the big question is - will it be a positive or negative experience for you, as a new parent?

A recent survey commissioned by iVillage.com found one out of four mothers questioned had a negative experience with a babysitter. Surprisingly, ten percent of the mothers reported mistreatment of their child by a babysitter.

Perhaps even more surprising to me is how willing many parents are to leave their child with someone who does not know how to deal with potentially life-threatening situations.

• A full one-third of mothers polled said they do not believe their babysitter knows how to help a child who is choking!
• Almost half of those polled do not believe the babysitter knows how to perform CPR.
• Over ten percent of mothers do not believe their babysitter can handle any medical emergency at all!!

With how fast we all know accidents happen and emergencies occur, these stats are shocking!

Babysitter training classes are available at local organizations such as American Heart Association and American Red Cross. Talking first aid devices such as SafetyMate for the New Parent can help teenagers or any caretakers refresh the information they learn in those classes in between annual trainings. www.safetymate.com/home/index.html

We all know if you don’t “use it,” you “lose it.” Unless you are a paramedic who is performing life-saving actions or CPR every day, there is no real way to become expert at dealing with crises.

Information is power. Learn, re-learn, practice, teach others…

As I noted in an earlier post, we have some exciting happenings!

After our debut on the TODAY show, it is now no secret that we are coming to market with a brand new solution to family first aid issues. SafetyMate for the New Parent is talking first aid for the home. The newest trend in essential safety gear for the modern mom and dad, SafetyMate allows parents the opportunity to refresh all the information they might have learned one time on-the-job or in an infant CPR class - at any time! Because SafetyMate is more interactive and engaging, with colored icons and blinking lights to guide the user, caretakers are much more likely to spend the time to refresh the information and to be prepared to deal with an emergency if the need arises.

Allison and I were recently at a trade show when a mother asked us how she was supposed to listen to the device over ”my own hysterical screaming.”

Interesting question.

My first thought was that in being afraid to even THINK about the issue that something might happen to your child is probably very normal and was, obviously for her, very anxiety provoking.

My own experience in being trained only once a year (while I was working in psychiatric hospitals) left me feeling vulnerable and afraid that I was supposed to know how to respond when actually I somehow felt LESS prepared than had I just remained totally ignorant. The diffusion of responsibility theory would absolutely be in play had I remained untrained.

However, now that I have been around this information and have listened to it numerous times, I have felt calm and totally capable of handling a situation. In fact, since I have been working with SafetyMate, I actually have responded on four separate occasions. In each case, I was able to not only remain calm myself, but have been able to keep others calm as well.

The point here is that preparedness does not increase anxiety, but allays it. The likelihood that a child is going to experience some emergency seems inescapable. The choice is to be prepared or to remain ignorant and perhaps when the time comes, to scream hysterically. Which would help your kid more?

SafetyMate continues to grow and expand its presence the Safety market. It has been such fun to develop an innovative product for which no current product category existed. In the past year or so, people in the industry now know about SafetyMate and  ”Emergency Information Refresher Devices.” As we continue to develop our product offerings, we will become better known among consumers in the retail market. I can’t wait to unveil what we’ve been working on!!! Stay tuned…

I certainly don’t think memory failure is just a “senior” problem. Studies over the years have validated time and time again that CPR retention rates are poor. Even for families who have incentive to remember CPR and First Aid skills, memory lapses and panic get in the way of not only parents, but teachers, co-workers and even medical professionals. Unless you encounter problems or situations regularly, the skills to solve those problems disappear.

I used to be a whiz at algebra. Haven’t used it since High School. If my nephew asked me to help him with his homework, I am certain I would look blankly at his paper.

We have been teaching CPR methods for 40 years yet survival rates have remained in the 5% range. Is memory / skill retention the problem? Perhaps. Any experiences dealing with memory lapses and / or panic? What did you do? Did it affect the outcome?

Good Samaritan Laws have been enacted in all 50 states so that people will help in times of crisis without fear of being found at fault if things do not turn out as hoped. Despite the fact that there have been no successful judgments against a good samaritan who attempted to help at the scene of an accident or emergency, many people and companies/corporate executives remain leary of helping, fearing that they somehow “take on responsibility” by attempting to help.

Despite the lack of successful judgments against people who try to help, the Good Samaritan law is perceived as fluffy. How come?

Does anyone else think it’s strange that OSHA requires first aid kits, yet does not require any instructional materials to go along with those kits? I’m wondering in a moment of crisis, how many people have stood in front of the opened first aid kit and not known what to grab or what to do.