Alert parents can help prevent many of those injuries. But in too many cases, parental abuse is to blame.

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According to the Third Annual Report of the National Injury Mortality Surveillance System (2001), the leading external causes of non-natural death amongst South African children under the age of one are:

1. Abandonment (31%)
2. Death by sharp object (25%)
3. Burns (19%)
4. Pedestrian motor vehicle collisions (16%)
5. Drowning (16%)
6. Passengers in motor vehicle collisions (15%)
7. Strangulation (13%)
8. Death by firearm (12%)
9. Death by blunt object (10%)

According to the 3rd Annual Report of the National Injury Mortality Surveillance System, approximately 1 356 South African children (0-19 years) were killed by firearms in 2001.

Expect the unexpected
The time for parents to be most alert is months 15 through 17, says Craig Anderson, a specialist at the University of California's Center for Health Policy and Research.

"That's when children are more mobile and able to get into things and have very little understanding of hazards," he adds.

"Parents should expect the unexpected," says Dr Phyllis Agran, a professor of paediatrics at the University in California, and a co-author of an American study on the health threats to young children.

"A child that age is developing so rapidly that you have to keep ahead of her and provide an environment in which she can use her new abilities in a safe way."

Avoid pedestrian injuries
As a child learns to walk, parents should be especially vigilant about pedestrian injuries, she says.

"A child gets in a driveway behind a vehicle, the driver can't see the child and backs up into her," Agran says. – (HealthScout News, Health24)

Read more:
Great nr. of SA babies die

 

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