How to Keep Your Children From Accidental Poisonings

A casual stroll through a typical home may seem fairly innocuous at first until you start looking around. What do you see? Nothing? What does your toddler see? I can guarantee you that your child sees his world differently than you see yours.

How do you explore your environment? Your environment has already been explored? OK.

What do you do when you think you feel hungry? You go to the refrigerator right? What do you do with what you find in the refrigerator? Let me guess, you put it into your mouth am I correct? Why? Because you know that what you put into your mouth from your refrigerator is going to satisfy your hunger (or satisfy your need to put something into your mouth).

But are you really hungry? Could your perceived need to make your way to the refrigerator be actually uncovering a hidden oral fixation? Nah! Wait a minute! You have learned as an adult that if you need to put something into your mouth for whatever reason, you go to the refrigerator or the pantry. Unfortunately, your youngster has not learned that yet.

When your child decides he needs to put something into his mouth where does he go?

Well not being as big as you, that cabinet underneath the sink looks doable. Let's see, Drano, mouse poison, Brillo Pads, bug spray, hmmmm. Might not taste good but doesn't take much.

Ok, so you've got those doors locked. Great! But don't stop there. He's gone. He's headed off to your bathroom in search of the prescription drugs you left on the vanity. You left them on your night stand this time? He'll find them.

On his way out to your garage to fill up on your paint thinner, gasoline, antifreeze, and the beer you keep in the garage fridge (just kidding about the beer), he munched on some of your poisonous houseplants. Whew, busy little fella!

First of all realize that the above scenario is a bit of an embellishment but hopefully helps you to realize that kids like to put things into their mouths. It is our jobs as adults to make sure that what our kids put into their mouths don't kill them. Not kidding here.

Accidental home poisonings are no joke. The American Association of Poison Control Centers estimates that before age 5, "one in five children will be exposed to a potential poison." Recently, that came to 1.2 million children. They go on further to state that 70% of these poisonings could have been prevented.

You can be the best parent in the world and your child will still find something to put into his mouth. It is one of the biggest fears that parents of young children face today. Vigilance here is the word of the day and a willingness to see your environment as your child does.

At this point you might be expecting some advice on how to keep Johnny away from the rhododendron. The best thing we can do for you at this point is to provide you with info on how to contact the American Association of Poison Control Centers.

Simply enter "American Association of Poison Control Centers" into your search engine. This site is loaded with info on how to keep your children safe from accidental poisoning and what to do if an accidental poisoning does happen. It is also a good idea to keep their number handy someplace like on the fridge. The one in your kitchen, not the one in the garage that you keep your beer in.

Debbie Parkinson is a free lance writer researching and writing on various topics. Debbie's passions are health and pets. If you love physical fitness training outdoors as I do, learn more about these super cool training aids, the Garmin GPS Watch and the Garmin Forerunner Watch.

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