Next week is child safety week, a time to think about just how safe your home is.

It is an alarming fact that around one million children end up in A&E every year from mostly preventable accidents. This shows how important it is to highlight safety issues that can occur through lack of awareness and complacency. Sometimes we just forget to check for dangers that can change as children get older.

Betta Living are running a campaign to promote awareness of child safety within the home. Starting from 23rd June they will have blog posts, an infographic, plus an interactive ‘spot the hazard’ tool.  Betta Living have also compiled a survey which questions people’s awareness and the precautionary measures they take to child-proof their homes, this is available to participate in now and you could win a £50 Mothercare voucher.

According to ChildSafetyWeek.Org.UK  parents say a third of accidents or near misses in the home happen in the morning when we are rushing around. Sound familiar?

Scarily, research by the Child Safety Week Organisation shows the following to be the top childhood accidents:

• stepping in front of traffic (54%)
• falling down the stairs (29%)
• suffering a serious fall from a highchair (20%)
• falling out of an open window (12%)
• drowning in the bath, in a pool or pond or in the sea (11%)
• being badly scalded by a hot drink (11%).

Safety does start in the home though and parents are the best ones to protect and rescue their children from danger.

From experience all children are different and they can sometimes lull you into a false sense of security, I never needed to have locks on my cupboards or a stairgate on the main stairs with any of the children until child number five, but actually any of those other children could so easily have got into the cupboards. Luckily I didn’t leave any chemicals where little hands could get them anyway. Also many children get driven everywhere nowadays so they are not so aware of road danger thus the very worrying statistic above.

However most of these accidents are preventable we just sometimes need a little nudge to remind us to check our windows, check our cupboards for poisonous chemicals, teach our children how to cross the road safely, strap children into highchairs and car seats, be water safety aware, and finally make sure we have safety equipment, for example; smoke alarms, stair gates and socket covers. So, here is my nudge to you and I’m off to check my windows.

Disclosure: In collaboration with Betta Living.