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Hot Liquids Safety
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Hot Liquids Burn Like Fire
Hot Beverages
- Put hot coffee down when you hold the baby. A wiggling baby can jiggle your arm and spill the drink all over himself.
- Put drinks and soups toward the center of the table away from curious fingers. Babies like to grab things.
- Consider replacing tablecloths with place mats to prevent your child from pulling everything on the table onto herself.
- Hot beverages caused one-third of the burns to children under five.
- 64% of the people burned by hot beverages were under two.
Tap Water
- It takes only two seconds for water at 150°F to cause a third degree burn.
- Set your hot water heater to temperatures of 125°F or less. (Massachusetts law states that the temperature must be between 110°F and 130°F.)
- Test the bath water before you put the baby in it. The temperature of hot water can vary.
- Always supervise young children in the bath. Babies and toddlers like playing with knobs and levers. They may turn on the hot water when you turn your back.
- 40% of the tap water scald patients were under three years old.
Cooking
- Turn pot handles inward.
- Establish and enforce a NO zone around the stove. Do not let children play near the stove or barbecue. This protects children from cooking liquids, grease and the hot metal.
- one-third of the people burned by hot cooking liquids were under five. 13% of cooking grease scalds were to pre-schoolers.
Statistics were obtained from the 2000 Annual Report of the Massachusetts Burn Injury Reporting System.
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