Childproofing your home
Doctors make child safety house call

By Stephanie Harris, WAVY-TV 10 - 3/23/2010

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (WAVY) - This time of year, many of us are getting ready to do some spring cleaning, and experts say it's also a good time to childproof your home.

You may be surprised to hear that in Virginia poisonings kills more people than any injury other than vehicle crashes.

The Virginia Poison Center received about 38,000 calls last year, and children under five are involved in about half of those calls.

In Virginia Beach, 14-month-old Sophia gets into everything in her own play kitchen. It's the mission of Doctors Jim Schmidt and Joel Clingenpeel to keep her out of the cabinets in the real kitchen.

Schmidt and Clingenpeel are emergency doctors who make Child Safety House Calls to point out the poisons that may be hiding in your home.

Every day, the doctors see kids like Sophia come into the emergency room after eating something they shouldn't.

"Fortunately, most of them are minor and just need some observation or minor therapies, but we certainly see kids that die or have serious injuries from them, on a weekly basis," Schmidt said.

Dr. Clingenpeel points out one of the most common mix-ups.

"Apple juice and Pine Sol. [They have] very similar containers very similar colors. [Pine Sol] is a very caustic chemical, so it can do a lot of burning in the mouth," he said.

The accident that worries Clingenpeel is, "The young child that gets into the older siblings ADHD medication, like Clonidine. That is truly a life threatening ingestion."

Nasal sprays and eye drops also have a chemical that can be toxic to the heart.

So never keep medications on the counter, Schmidt says. "Ideally keep them up high in a cabinet", or in a locked box, and keep cabinets with chemicals securely locked."

The doctors recommend the kind that uses a magnet to open.

It may take Sophia's parents a few extra steps, but they don't mind, as long as they stay at least one step ahead of her.

If your child does get into a potential poison, call the Virginia Poison Center right away, at 1-800-222-1222. They will tell you what to do.

If you to go to the hospital, take the bottle of can of whatever they ingested with you. Doctors say it can help doctors know how to treat the child.

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About Child Safety House Calls
Child Safety House Calls is led by two emergency room pediatricians and specializes in evaluating and selling through their online child safety store childproofing and child safety products such as child safety gates, childproof locks, childproof door locks, childproof gates, childproof door knobs, childproof latches, childproof drawers, childproof cabinets, baby gates, baby safety items, bathroom safety items, tub safety items and more. They provide information to parents nationwide on poison prevention, childproofing your home, child safety in the home, and the best childproof products. In Hampton Roads, Virginia, their team conducts child safety house calls to parents in Virginia Beach, Norfolk, Chesapeake, Suffolk, Hampton, Newport News, and Williamsburg.