BABY WALKERS - STILL A MAJOR CAUSE OF INFANT BURNS

Baby walkers have been implicated in many forms of paediatric trauma, ranging from finger tip entrapment to severe head injury. Their relati onship to childhood burns has been documented previously. The Departme nt of Trade and Industry published further warnings in 1984 and the Br itish Standards Institution in 1989. We wished to determine if the deg ree or frequency of thermal injury had been lessened by these recommen dations. All parents of children under 15 months of age admitted to th is unit in 1994 were asked if their child was in a baby walker at the time of injury. Eight of the 32 infants, aged between 6 and 12 months, were burned in their walking Rid. Half of the burns were contact and half scalds, and the average in-patient stay was 8 days. One patient r equired formal resuscitation and three were grafted. The incidence and severity of thermal injury sustained in baby walkers remains at a hig h level despite increased safety measures. Perhaps it is time to concu r with the American Academy of Paediatrics and recommend a bait on the se dangerous aids. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd for ISBI. All rights reserved.