Shopping Cart Related Injuries Hurt 66 Kids a Day

According to a new study, the number and rate of injuries sustained by children in shopping carts continues to climb, despite a voluntary shopping cart safety standard implemented in the United States in 2004.

The study, conducted by researchers in the Center for Injury Research and Policy of The Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, examined data relating to children younger than 15 years of age who were treated in U.S. emergency departments from 1990 through 2011 for a shopping cart injury.

An estimated 530,494 injured children were documented during the study period, averaging more than 24,000 children annually; equal to 66 children per day or one child treated every 22 minutes.

The study, published in the January print issue of Clinical Pediatrics, found that falls from a shopping cart accounted for the majority of injuries (70.4 percent), followed by running into/falling over the cart, cart tip overs and entrapment of extremities in the cart. The most commonly injured body region was the head (78.1 percent). While soft tissue injuries were the most common diagnosis for these head injuries, the annual rate of concussions and closed head injuries (which are concussions and internal head injuries) increased significantly by more than 200 percent during the study period, with the number of these injuries going from 3,483 injuries in 1990 to 12,333 in 2011. Most of this increase was associated with children ages 0 to 4 years.