Bathtime safety
January 15th, 2016
The Child Accident Prevention Trust (CAPT) last month again warned parents about bath seats. They cited the story of a young mother, Suzie Dyball, whose 7 month old baby daughter nearly drowned recently when the bath seat she was sitting in tipped over. Thank goodness this particular story had a happy ending, and the baby was saved by her mother’s quick actions. The outcome could have been fatal. However, after the accident, Suzie harnessed the power of social media and Facebook to raise awareness of the dangers of bath seats, and her post received over 170k shares. The danger of drowning is real – ROSPA report that one in three accidental drowning deaths in children aged two and under involve bath seats.
Suzie describes what happened:
“Yesterday evening Felicity (7 months) was in the bath in this seat when it tipped over and trapped her face down in the water. I was right there by the bath. A couple of the suction pads were still stuck to the bath and it was hard to free her. The few seconds it took felt like a lifetime.”
ROSPA warn that not only are bath seats NOT safety devices, but they can actually give parents a false sense of security, and can act as a barrier to proper care of a young child in the bath. The danger is so serious that in February this year, Public Health England issued an alert about the use of bath seats. So, extra caution is needed- do not turn your back even for a few seconds, because that’s all it takes for a terrible accident to happen. Hope you never find yourself in this situation but if it happened would you know what to do? We have access to Ofsted compliant pediatric 1st aid courses for nannies and run the course on a Saturday in Cheadle, every 6 weeks.
Call 07766290802 for more information.