Infants’ In-Home Injuries: Implications and Future Directions

As infants’ motor skills improve over time, they can better explore their environments; however, infants have minimal skills to appraise danger. Unintentional injuries in the home are a leading cause of death for young children (National Center for Injury Prevention and Control (NCIPC), 2020) and are often the result of hazardous interactions (e.g., ingesting cleaner fluids) and/or engaging in unsafe behaviors (e.g., climbing onto bookcases; Morrongiello et al., 2021; Pickett et al., 2003). The rate of unintentional injuries increases as motor skills improve. Past research on young children’s injuries provided information about the type of injuries incurred (Morrongiello et al., 2014) and safety practices parents take (Gaines & Schwebel, 2009; Morrongiello & House, 2004; Peterson et al., 1990; Sleet et al., 2010). These studies helped guide messaging for providers who work with young children and their families. However, much of this research has focused on toddlerhood and/or retrospective analyses. A noticeable gap in this research is related to the contextual factors for injuries and subsequent parental safety practices with infants. To address this gap in the literature, Morrongiello et al. (2021) conducted a contextual analysis through participant event recordings of injuries during three stages of motor development. Parents recorded types of injuries, what behavior led to the injury, the severity of injuries, and parental response. They also examined where injuries occurred and parent–child interactions at the time of the incident. Their results were enlightening in several ways, indicating that infants’ injuries occurred in both play and nonplay areas, bumps and bruises were the most common type of injury, and these increased in severity as infants acquired greater motor skills. Importantly, half of the injuries incurred from behaviors that resulted in previous injuries, while preventative actions decreased the more the child engaged in the behavior in the past. Interestingly, injuries most often occurred when infants were supervised by their mother, and mothers did not believe that those injuries were preventable across all levels of motor skills. These findings fill a significant gap in the literature; however, it is important to consider limitations of the results related to generalization, implications, and future directions. First, special consideration should be given regarding the homogenous sample representing predominantly white, well-educated, and middle-high income homes. Previous research with ethnically diverse parents has reported that Latinx families report lower child injury rates (Heerman et al., 2016) and racial and ethnic differences in injury prevention behaviors among caregivers of infants (Simon et al., 2008). Similarly, previous research reported that incidence rates of injuries may increase for families with socioeconomic inequalities (Orton et al., 2014). Caution should be made when translating the study’s research findings into clinical practice with diverse families. Additionally, the literature suggests that the accrual of minor injuries has good predictive validity to medically attended ones (Karazsia & van Dulmen, 2010). However, young children, and especially infants, may not follow the same pattern. Given infant’s stature, their bones are pliable, flexible, and strong and can absorb a bit of shock due to this flexibility (Hannemann, 2014). When infants do require medical attention, it may be a result of a single, more severe injury, such as falling off higher surfaces (e.g., changing table). Furthermore, the most common medically attended injuries for children under five include