Does your Oregon child care provider offer a safe environment for your child? This page identifies the risks and tells you what to look for. If it is too late and your child was injured, then you may call me for a free consultation to determine your rights to monetary compensation.

A study by the Consumer Product Safety Commission raised questions and, also, provides a checklist for you to use to conduct your own examination of your care provider. Thousands of children age four years and younger are treated in hospital emergency rooms for injuries at child care or school settings. Child deaths and injuries childcare centers prompted the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) to investigate 220 licensed child providers for safety hazards. It examined in-home care centers, for-profit centers, nonprofit centers, and federal General Services Administration child care centers. A summary of the results follows.

Cribs: More babies -- about 40 to 50 each year -- die in accidents involving cribs than with any other piece of nursery equipment. Children can strangle when crib slats that are too far apart and their heads catch in the slats. Crib slats should be no more than 2 3/8 inches apart. (Spacing on bunk bed railings for older children should be no more than 3 ½ inches.) Children can suffocate when their faces and noses are wedged between a too-small mattress and the crib. Also, there can be problems with old cribs that are not sturdy or have catch points that can entangle children’s clothing. In the study, the CPSC found that 8% of the child care settings had cribs that did not meet current safety standards.

Soft Bedding: Soft bedding presents a suffocation risk for infants. Each year, as many as 900 babies whose deaths are attributed to Sudden Death Syndrome (SIDS) may have suffocated on soft bedding. Parents should look out for too-soft pillows, comforters, and quilts. CPSC recommends eliminating all soft bedding in babies’ cribs. CPSC found that 19% of the childcare settings had cribs containing soft bedding.

Playground Surfacing: For children under age six, playground-related injuries (about 90,000 each year) account for more visits to U.S. hospital emergency rooms than any other child care-related injury. About 15 children die each year from playground-related injuries. Because 70 percent of playground injuries result from falls, playground surfaces should be made of material that gives. A well-designed playground will use 12 inches of wood chips, mulch, sand, pea gravel or shock absorbing rubber. Grass or dirt is no guarantee of safety, because each can become too hard under certain weather conditions: hot dry summer or frozen winter. In the CPSC study, 24% of childcare settings did not have safe playground surfacing.

Playground Maintenance: Even when playgrounds are designed properly, they must be maintained. The CPSC found that 27% of the childcare settings did not maintain the playgrounds to meet safety standards. Child Safety Gates: Child safety gates can protect children from hazards, especially falls down stairs. Each year more than 100,000 children under age five go to U.S. Hospitals with stair-related injuries. The CPSC found that 13% of the childcare settings did not use child safety gates where necessary.

Window Blind Cords: Children strangle in window covering cords, often in the loop of cords. Children have died in childcare settings after standing up in their cribs and becoming entangled in a window blind cord. Although new blinds are no longer manufactured with loops, many older blinds still have them. The cords can be made safer by merely cutting the loops and tying the cords securely out of harm’s way. The CPSC found that 26% of the childcare settings had loops on window blind cords.

Recalled products: Using recalled nursery products and toys can be a hazard to young children. CPSC is aware of children in childcare who have died in incidents involving a portable crib/playpen that had been recalled. The CPSC found that 5% of the childcare settings had products that had been recalled.

Take a cue from the CPSC: inspect your childcare facility as you would inspect your own home -- looking for potential hazards to your children