Kentucky Injury Law News
Parents in Kentucky and across the country may be shocked to learn that a study from the Nationwide Children’s Hospital has revealed that 66,000 infants and toddlers are treated in emergency rooms in the United States each year for injuries caused by nursery product-related accidents.
This figure indicates that a child under the age of 3 is injured by a nursery product about every 8 minutes or so, and the Ohio-based hospital’s research team came to this conclusion after scrutinizing emergency room records over a 21-year period of time between 1991 and 2011. The researchers paid particular attention to the cases of infants or toddlers who had been injured by nursery products, and they noticed that the amount of these injuries had increased by a worrying 25 percent during the last 8 years studied.
According to the NCH research, the vast majority of these injuries were caused by falls involving products like walkers, bouncers or changing tables. One of the researchers involved says that manufacturers deserve much of the blame and could improve matters considerably by making simple improvements to cribs and strollers. The study’s lead author points out that the business community responded positively in 2001 when similar research exposed vulnerabilities in baby walker designs.
Manufacturers have good reason to be concerned about this kind of safety research. Unsafe or defective products could damage corporate reputations and place hard-won market shares in jeopardy, and the punitive damages often awarded in product liability cases can be quite high. Experienced personal injury attorneys may encourage manufacturers to settle this kind of litigation quickly and quietly to avoid a flood of similar claims.