Prevent child injuries in the home

Consumers Union recently conducted tests—demonstrated in the video, at right—to study the hazards associated with placing televisions of various sizes on top of unstable furniture.

And last Friday, ASTM International announced an important revision of its furniture safety standard to address tip over hazards.

The new standard, called "Safety Specification for Chests, Door Chests, and Dressers," is intended to reduce injuries and deaths to children from the tip over of dressers, chests of drawers, and other common clothing storage units.

Each year, about a dozen children are killed when furniture they climb on tips over, or when a TV set atop that furniture topples on them. Recent research estimated that an average of 14,700 serious injuries per year—with a growing injury rate—are associated with tipping furniture. (Learn how to prevent tipover injuries by childproofing the bedroom and childproofing the living room or den.)

This must come as welcome news to parents like Bob and Judy Lambert, whose daughter Katie Elise Lambert died four years ago at the age of three when a large wardrobe cabinet fell on top of her. The Lamberts have worked to strengthen the safety standard.

Read the rest of this post on our Safety blog.