Injury Prevention

Supporting Information

Burns and scalds are among the most common causes of serious injury among young children. Children need to be prevented from touching cooking stoves, boiling water, hot food and hot irons. Burns often cause serious injury and permanent scarring, and some are fatal. The great majority of these are preventable.

Burns can be prevented by:

• keeping young children away from fires, matches and cigarettes
• keeping stoves on a flat, raised surface out of the reach of children. If an open cooking fire is used, it should be made on a raised mound of clay, not directly on the ground.
• turning the handles of all cooking pots away from the reach of children
• keeping petrol, paraffin, lamps, matches, candles, lighters, hot irons and electric cords out of the reach of young children.

Children can be seriously injured if they put their fingers or other objects into electric sockets. Power sockets should be covered to prevent access.

Electric wires should be kept out of children's reach. Bare electric wires are particularly dangerous.