Kids' Health Blog

For the past two years, we’ve taken our Making safe simple program to the Minnesota State Fair. For 12 days from dawn until after dusk, we educate fairgoers on ATV, bike, car seat, and household safety.

Our goal is to help families prevent injuries and, in the case of an emergency, how to best respond. We hope no family experiences an emergency. But reality tells us it will and does happen.

Each year, 5,000 children die and another six million are hurt because of unintentional injuries. One in four kids is hurt seriously enough to need medical attention. We believe that, together, we can make safe simple.

That became even more apparent after the fair when we received the following email from Sarah who had visited our Making safe simple booth. Hours within visiting the fair, her family had taken our advice and put it into action to prevent an emergency from escalating. Here’s her story:

THANK YOU for the great, life-saving, or at least, garage-saving safety information your team provided at the Fair. My family and I visited your booth today and took your safety quiz this year. We’ve gone in the past and had fun, but this year it was extra helpful.

I got a “hard” question in the Plinko area and was asked about how to operate a fire extinguisher. I had to think about it a bit, but came up with a passable answer. The volunteer then taught us the PASS acronym about pulling the pin, aiming, squeezing the trigger and sweeping back and forth.

Not eight hours later, I looked out the back window of our kitchen and saw our grill on fire, flames all over the front. My husband and I jumped to our feet, grabbed the extinguisher and knew EXACTLY what to do. The fire was put out safely in just a few seconds—before the flames could jump to the adjacent tree, our garage, fence or the neighbor’s house. Whew!

Please pass my heartfelt thanks along to your wonderful team of fair volunteers. The information they provided helped us calmly and effectively deal with a household emergency—before it became a real emergency. We are all safe and sound tonight because of your help!

Thanks, Sarah, for sharing your story.

With all the time kids spend in the sun during the summer, it’s important to know how to protect them from sunburns. At Children’s, we believe in Making Safe Simple — so we’ve put together five tips to help you and your kids avoid sunburn this summer (and what to do if you do happen to get one!).

• Apply one ounce (two tablespoons) of sunscreen to the entire body 30 minutes before going outside. This gives skin a chance to absorb it. Reapply every two hours, or immediately after sweating heavily.
• Make your own shade with a wide-brimmed hat or baseball cap. Protect your eyes with UV-blocking sunglasses (the bigger, the better). Just make sure the sunglasses have 90 to 100 percent protection from UVA and UVB rays.
• Don’t forget to protect areas that are often missed, such as: your chin, nose, ears, scalp, under eyes, shoulders, and on top of your hands. Also apply lip balm with an SPF (Sun Protection Factor) to keep your lips safe.
• Look for “broad spectrum” sunscreen with an SPF of 15 or higher that includes ingredients that protect you from both UVA and UVB (Ultraviolet A and B) rays. You can also look for the “Skin Cancer Foundation Seal of Recommendation” to help you find the right sunscreen.
• Don’t be fooled by a cloudy day at the fair. The sun’s harmful UV rays can penetrate through clouds and even a thick fog.
• If you do get sunburn, aloe vera gel is extremely soothing, nontoxic, and helps heal the skin.

Need more sun-safety tips? Here’s how to protect your kids from dehydration and heat exhaustion.

As an incredible heat wave continues in Minnesota, we thought it was a good time to talk about ways to keep kids safe in the heat. In addition to our quick tips for protecting your kids from dehydration, here are tips on avoiding heat exhaustion. We believe in Making Safe Simple, so take a few moments to review these tips!

1. Children adjust more slowly than adults do to changes in environmental heat. They also produce more heat with activity than adults, and sweat less. Sweating is one of the body’s normal cooling mechanisms. Children often do not think to rest when having fun and may not drink enough fluids when playing or exercising.
2. Heat exhaustion results from a loss of water and salt in the body due to excessive sweating. It occurs when the body is unable to cool itself properly and, if left untreated, can progress to heat stroke.
3. Signs of heat exhaustion in children are: profuse sweating, pale skin that’s cool and damp to the touch, rapid and shallow breathing, headache, nausea, normal or below-normal body temperature, vomiting or diarrhea, dizziness, weakness or fainting, and muscle cramps.
4. If your child is experiencing heat exhaustion, move them to a cool place right away and let them rest. You should remove extra clothing and apply cool cloths (towels with cold water) and fan their skin. Give them cool sports drinks containing salt and sugar such as Gatorade (if they don’t feel nauseous).
5. Call your doctor or go to the emergency department if their condition hasn’t improved or they are unable to take fluids within an hour.

Follow these quick tips to keep your kids safe from dehydration when they're out playing in hot temperatures.

Summertime is definitely here, and what kid can’t wait to get outside and play? But staying safe in the sun, and avoiding dehydration, is important.

We believe in Making Safe Simple. Here are some quick tips to help your kids avoid dehydration:

• On hot days, make sure you drink plenty of water to stay hydrated. The human body requires at least one liter of water daily.
• Dehydration means that a child’s body doesn’t have enough fluid. Dehydration can result from not drinking, vomiting, diarrhea, or any combination of these conditions. Sweating or urinating too much rarely causes it.
• Thirst is not a good early indicator of dehydration. By the time a child feels thirsty, he or she may already be dehydrated. And thirst can be quenched before the necessary body fluids have been replaced.
• Signs of dehydration in children include the following: sticky or dry mouth, few or no tears when crying, eyes that look sunken into the head, lack of urine or wet diapers for six to eight hours in an infant (or only a very small amount of dark yellow urine), lack of urine for 12 hours in an older child (or only a very small amount of dark yellow urine), dry cool skin, irritability, and fatigue or dizziness in an older child.
• If you suspect your child is dehydrated, start by replenishing their body with fluids. Plain water is the best option for the first hour or two. They can drink as much as they want. After this, the child might need drinks containing sugar and electrolytes (salts) or regular food. Also, the child should rest in a cool, shaded environment until the lost fluid has been replaced.
• Call your doctor immediately or take your child to the nearest emergency department if there is no improvement or condition is worsening.

Children's CEO Alan Goldbloom helps a child put on a helmet as part of a Bike Cops for Kids event.

Children’s CEO Alan Goldbloom and members of Children’s Trauma Care team joined officers from the Bike Cops for Kids program to give away bike helmets to children in Minneapolis.  Children’s donated 720 bike helmets and 56 bikes to the program this year to encourage kids to wear helmets whenever they are riding.  Officers who see children wearing helmets featuring the “Bike Cops for Kids” sticker will be eligible to win a new bike.

Dr. Goldbloom was joined by Children’s co-medical director of trauma, Dr. David Hirschman, director of trauma services, Malea Anderson, and program manager for injury prevention, Kristi Moline.  They rode alongside Bike Cops, Mark Klukow and Michael Kirchen.  Bike Cops for Kids is a program that encourages safe bike riding, and also helps police officers build positive relations with young people in the community.

Speaking of helmets, make sure your kids know how to wear theirs correctly! Take 30 seconds to review our video on helmet safety.

Kristi Moline, our injury prevention manager, appeared on the Mom Enough podcast to share tips on how to keep your kids safe during the summer. One of her biggest messages? Wear helmets! And we aren’t just talking to kids here. Parents, as role models, should also wear their helmets.

Kristi is also the star of one of our new public service announcements on car seat safety. You can find that video, and lots of tips on staying safe, on our Making Safe Simple pages.