PA Key Provides Indoor and Outdoor Safety Tips During Winter Weather
With arctic temperatures and heavy snowfall becoming more common as the winter sets in, The Pennsylvania Key has put together a list of health trends in early childhood to help children stay safe indoors and outdoors during wintertime.
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Caregivers and educators should prepare for power outages and severe winter weather and know how to react in such situations. All 67 counties in Pennsylvania have a 24-hour warning point and emergency operations center, so it is important to stay informed about weather conditions and public service announcements that warn of potential health or safety risks for children.
Some important resources include:
Car and Vehicle Safety
Car seats and winter coats are a bad combination. Bulky coats compress in a crash and create a loose car seat harness. Caregivers should instead lay the jacket or a blanket over children once they have been safely strapped into their car seat.
A car should never be left running inside a garage. To warm up a vehicle, remove it from the garage as soon as you start it to avoid the risk of carbon monoxide poisoning.
Fire Safety
Caregivers should set up a three-foot “kid-free zone” around space heaters and open fires. It is important to turn portable space heaters off when leaving the room.
Also, keep anything that can burn at least three feet away from heating equipment, including portable space heaters, fireplaces, wood stoves, and furnaces.
Sleep Safety
Creating a safe sleep area can help to reduce the risk of sudden infant death syndrome and other sleep-related deaths, such as accidental suffocation. To keep babies warm, dress them in a wearable blanket/sleep sack - but avoid overheating and do not bundle them.
Keep babies’ cribs, bassinets, portable cribs, or portable play yards free of stuffed animals and blankets. To sleep safely, an infant only needs a firm mattress covered with a tight-fitting crib sheet.
Preventing Carbon Monoxide Poisoning
More than 400 Americans die annually from unintentional carbon monoxide poisoning not linked to fires, while more than 100,000 visit an emergency department and more than 14,000 are hospitalized.
Caregivers should install and maintain carbon monoxide alarms in the home and vent all fire-burning equipment to the outside to avoid carbon monoxide poisoning.
The most common symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning are headache, dizziness, weakness, nausea, vomiting, chest pain, and confusion.
Keeping Children Safe Outdoors
When children are exposed to extreme cold for too long and without warm, dry, breathable clothing, they can get frostbite or even life-threatening hypothermia.
If caregivers are unsure whether weather conditions are safe for outdoor play, check the Child Care Weather Watch Chart.
For more information on recognizing the signs of hypothermia or frostbite, how to prevent children from getting them, and what to do in case they do, read Tips for Keeping Children Safe While Playing Outdoors During the Winter.