"Safety" Gates Are Sending Babies to the ER

Baby gates, which are designed to protect young children from exposing themselves to dangerous environments, may actually be dangers themselves, according to a recent study that has revealed that nearly 2,000 youngsters a year go to the emergency room for injuries sustained on baby gates.

According to a study published in the journal Academic Pediatrics, these injuries were sustained by babies who fell through or attempted to climb these gates.

Thankfully, the large majority of these reported injuries were not serious. However, researchers from Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio say that the fact that these findings exist at all is cause for alarm considering the gates in question were designed to protect children, not hurt them.

According to the study, a total of 1188 actual cases of baby-gate related injuries among children up to six years older were reviewed and national estimated were generated. With this model, the researchers estimated that 1794 gate-related injuries occurred annually. Alarmingly, in an analysis of yearly data, the researchers estimated that the prevalence of gate-related injuries has increased significantly from 3.9 per 100,000 children in 1990 to 12.5 per 100,000 children in 2010.

Over 60 percent of these patients were boys under the age of two, and were most commonly injured from falls down stairs that the gates were intended to prevent. Interestingly, the gates themselves proved the threat to children aged two years and older, with 95 percent of all gate-related incidents in children past the age of two being soft-tissue injuries or open wounds caused by the gates' mechanisms.

"Given the clear [difference in injuries depending on age] as well as prevalence of preventable injuries, greater efforts are needed to promote proper usage, ensure safety in design, and increase awareness or age-related recommendation for use of gates," the authors of the study concluded.

The study was published in Academic Pediatrics on April 5.