A new study has found that warning labels may not be helping prevent magnet injuries. The health and safety of children are the top priority for parents everywhere. They want to make sure they are safe, and that they are not getting into anything that can harm them.
This means they are watching what their children are doing, what they are around, and what they are putting in their mouths. This is obviously a larger concern for parents of young children, but children of any age can be known to do something impulsive, and something put in their mouth is always at risk of being ingested.
Magnet injuries are a large concern for parents everywhere, as we hear cases of children ingesting these, and becoming seriously ill. According to Medical Xpress, warning labels are not doing much to help lower this risk and incidents.
This was shown through a study that was published in the journal, Pediatrics, and it can be read in full here. It found that parents of children who are exposed to high-powered magnets often do not even know if there were warning labels present, much less if they even read them.
This can serve as an important reminder to parents everywhere to inspect what is around their children and to make sure they are reading all the labels on children’s toys and products before purchasing them, or letting their children have them. This study was done by having participants fill out surveys about the presence and the use of warning labels.
- They found that more than half of the participants (53.6%) reported that they didn’t know if there was a warning label present, and 22.3% said that a warning label was completely missing.
- When they found that a label was present, less than half reported that they had read the label at all.
- They did find that 58% said that they are aware that warning labels are dangerous, and they knew that there were magnets in some of their children’s toys.
This has caused experts to call for federal action to make sure all children's products that have strong magnets are removed from the shelves. This should be seen as a “joint effort,” and while parents need to be mindful of what their children are around, they need help from federal agencies to make sure that there are limited products on the shelves as well. If not, these injuries are said to continue.
Sources: Medical Xpress, AAP