For those households with elderly people and small children, the effort to stay safe inside the home is great. There are many things that can cause injury to these two groups that most people don’t think much about.
However, in the bathroom everyone in the home is at-risk for injury if the proper safety measures are not in place. The bathroom is the smallest room in the home, but it is not nearly the safest. While most homeowners are aware of the dangers in the kitchen and the garage – very few think about how injuries might occur in the bathroom.
For this reason, the Home Safety Council has made January National Bath Safety Month and gives the following tips for making sure that everyone in the home – regardless of age or physical condition – is safe in the bathroom:
- More than 250,000 people are injured each year in the bathroom, and 81% of those injuries are due to slip and falls. To avoid this situation install grab bars and bathmats to your bathroom. Grab bars do not need to be permanently installed into the wall to add safety. In fact, there are some home medical equipment options that suction to the wall of the shower and support a significant amount of weight. Bathmats provide a textured surface for people to stand on while inside of the shower or standing up out of the bath. And, on the floor in the bathroom, a bathmat provides a safe and dry place to step when getting out of the shower or tub.
- For anyone, a second or third degree burn is extremely painful. But, for a small child, a burn can be devastating and difficult to treat. Small children don’t know better than to touch and pick at a wound, which can lead to infection. Avoid this by making sure that your water heater is not set any higher than 120 degrees. Also, make sure to check the temperature of the bathtub using a thermometer before putting your child into it. There are many kids’ bath products that test the temperature of the bath water by changing color when the water is too hot.
- Keep medications and chemicals stored away from the bathroom that your child uses. It is very convenient to keep cleaning chemicals in the bathroom so that you can wipe down counters or the toilet when you have a spare 10 minutes but, it is also very dangerous to your children. Keep cleaning chemicals in the laundry room or up on the top shelf of the linen closet. It might take an extra couple of seconds to retrieve them but, it will ensure that your child does not accidentally ingest them.
Keeping kids safe is an around the clock job – even when you are inside of your home. But, adding these few safety tips will dramatically reduce the chances of dangerous situations from occurring and will generously support you in your efforts to protect your kiddos from injury.