Room-By-Room Tips to Prevent Accidental Poisoning
If you have kids, you’ll want to give these rooms the once-over
Kids get into everything — sometimes including products that can make them sick. An estimated 85,000 children younger than 5 are unintentionally poisoned each year in the Unites States according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC). A report from Safe Kids Worldwide puts the number of U.S. kids who go to the ER each year for poisoning at around 60,000.
Are all the potentially poisonous products in your home safely locked or stowed away? Use this room-by-room checklist to be sure.
In case of emergency, keep the nationwide poison control center phone number, 1-800-222-1222, near every phone and on your cell phone. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) advises calling the poison control center if you think a child has been poisoned but he is awake and alert, and calling 911 if you have a poison emergency and the child has collapsed or is not breathing.
Related: 10 Places
to Use Child Safety Locks
Bathroom
Mind your
meds:
Keep medicines in their original childproof containers. Place them out of sight, in a locked cabinet
if necessary.
Related: Spring
Clean Your Medicine Cabinet
Avoid
drain cleaner drama:
Drain
openers, toilet bowl cleaners and shower cleaners can be highly toxic if
swallowed. If you keep these in a bathroom cabinet, make sure the cabinet is
latched. And keep the products in their original childproof packaging.
Stash
the mouthwash:
It may
seem innocuous, but some mouthwash products contain alcohol, which can make
kids sick or worse. Children may be attracted to it because its colorful or
smells good, so keep it out of sight and reach. Also stash the aftershave, and
the cough syrup, which an older child might try to use to get high.
(Photo:
tab62/Shutterstock)
Keep beauty
products to yourself:
Nail polish remover, eye make-up remover and the like — all
of these should be up high and out of reach. Even lipsticks shouldn’t be left
lying around, as some may contain a trace of lead, according to
UL.
Kitchen
Collect all
cleaners behind one closed (and latched) door:
Lock up that
floor cleaner, kitchen counter spray with bleach and all other household
cleaners. Better still, use
less-toxic cleaners such as vinegar. (Photo: B Calkins/Shutterstock)
Deter kids
from detergents:
Secure all dishwasher and laundry detergent pods in the same cabinet. Kids may be drawn
to them since they’re small and colorful.
Skip the critter killers: Never put roach powders or
rat poison on the floor if you have kids, advises KidsHealth.
Related: Natural
Ways to Bug-Proof Your Home
Keep meds and vitamins out of reach: According to a Safe Kids Worldwide report, in 18 percent of
medication poisonings, kids found the medicines on the counter. (They also find
dropped pills on the floor, so sweep well.) Don’t forget any meds stored in the
fridge — they should be out of reach, too.
Bedroom
Study your nightstand: If you keep meds,
especially sleeping pills, on the stand or in the drawer, you’ll want to move
them to somewhere secure.
(Photo: 2happy/Shutterstock)
Put away perfume: Perfumes generally taste awful, but their colors and pretty bottles can be enticing to small kids.
Children can get alcohol poisoning from drinking perfumes, which contain 50 to
99 percent alcohol.
Related: 5 Products in Your House That Contain Alcohol
Hang your purse up high: Some kids love to
rummage around in mom’s purse. If you have medicine in there, or even a bottle
of hand sanitizer, your purse belongs out of reach.
Alcohol-based hand sanitizers contain 45 to 95 percent alcohol. In fact, one 2-ounce
container of sanitizer has as much alcohol as four shots of hard liquor,
according to Children’s Hospital Los Angeles. Also keep your diaper bag out of
reach; diaper rash creams are among the products kids get into according to
Safe Kids Worldwide.
Protect against CO poisoning: While we think of poisons as things we ingest, the air can be poisonous, too, if it contains carbon monoxide. To prevent carbon monoxide poisoning, install a battery-operated carbon monoxide alarm (or one that is hardwired but has a battery backup) in the hallway near every separate sleeping area in your home. Check the batteries at least twice a year.
Living room
Get the lead out: If
your house was built before 1978, keep your kids away from surfaces with
chipping or peeling paint, including walls, floors and windowsills. Lead can
sometimes be found in toys, too, so, check periodically for product recalls (toys
with lead in them are illegal in the United States). Photos and descriptions of
recalled toys can be
found on the Consumer Product Safety Commission website.
Related: 5 Ways to Avoid Lead Poisoning in Kids
Button up button cell batteries: If a child swallows one of these, it could get stuck in the esophagus and form a corrosive chemical that damages tissues. Any remotes, game systems and other electronics that use button batteries, including electronic car keys, should be kept out of reach of kids. Keep any spare batteries hidden away. (Photo: Coprid/Shutterstock)
Lock up the liquor: A curious young child
could mistake a bottle of colorful liqueur for fruit juice and drink it,
causing serious harm, according to the American Association of Pediatrics.
Open the flue: When using your
fireplace, open the flue for ventilation to protect against carbon dioxide
poisoning. Don’t close fireplace doors or a stove damper until the fire is
completely out. Have the chimney, vent and flu cleaned and inspected annually
by a qualified technician, advises
John Drengenberg, consumer safety director for UL.
Garage
Padlock the
poisons:
Store pesticides, lighter fluid, paint thinner, turpentine, antifreeze
and windshield wiper fluid in childproof containers on a high shelf, or better
yet, in a locked cabinet.
Open the
door:
Don’t start the car in a closed garage or you risk carbon monoxide
poisoning. If you have a keyless ignition,
remember to turn off the car when you come home. People have died from
leaving it on in an attached garage, allowing carbon monoxide to seep into the
house.
Related: Disaster-Proof Your Garage
The
basement
Service
your furnace:
To prevent carbon monoxide poisoning, UL advises having your furnace
and hot water heater inspected by a professional each year.
Potential signs of a CO leak include streaks of carbon or soot
around the service door of your fuel-burning appliance or
moisture collecting on the windows and walls of your furnace room, according to UL. (Photo: Leena Robinson/Shutterstock)
Put a CO
alarm in your basement, too.
You should have at least one on every
level of your home, according to UL.
Related: Carbon
Monoxide Poisoning: Is Your Family Protected?
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