Keeping Baby Explorers Safe From Falls

Source: Luiza Braun/Unsplash

Babies are curious to explore the world and test the limits of what they are capable of—how far they can reach, how fast they can move, and how the things around them feel, smell, and taste. This is a critical part of their motor and cognitive development. We want infants to explore the world and take on adventures, and admittedly, we are fascinated by their joy when they discover new things. That said, we also want to keep them safe in their exploration, as right from birth, babies are at risk of falling.

Some types of falls are a natural part of child development. While early stages of gross motor development include stumbles while starting to walk or crawl, and these rarely end up being serious, some other falls can be much more serious. Data from hospitals have repeatedly shown that the most common cause of hospital admittance of children under the age of five going is an injury caused by falls.

When do infants fall?

In a recent study conducted in Australia, researchers collected contextual information on infant falls, specifically during the first year of the child’s life. They identified that out of 461 fall incidents involving infants, the top three contributing mechanisms were falls from household furniture, falls when being carried by someone, and falls from baby products. There is no doubt that all of us want to keep our babies safe, but we also aim to give them the space to be curious and independent in their exploration. Can we strike a balance? Yes, a lot of these identified causes seem to be fixable problems.

The study found that over 75 percent of falls from furniture were due to rolling off the bed and falling from changing tables. It seems that infants were rolling off from the bed when parents looked away even for just a few minutes, or they fell from changing tables even when parents looked away even for a few seconds to grab a diaper or tissues. While we may be busy changing them or feeding them, what are babies doing? They may choose to move around or reach out to grab something nearby. Make sure that they have things in their hands or near them to keep them occupied even for those few seconds when you have to look away. Save the most stimulating or engaging toys for moments like these when you may need them to be occupied while you look away.

Also, remember that while changing tables have safety straps, these are designed to keep your baby in place and not to keep them secured to the table. So even with the strap in place, a baby could fall off the table. We do need better design safety regulations in place to keep babies secured to these pieces of furniture.

Give infants control

The discussion on safety brings up an important side note—giving babies control. For most of the day, we control what infants do—what they eat, what they play with, and what they wear. We even turn on or turn off their toys for them.

Keep the explorer thriving in your baby by giving them control within a safe environment. Let them feel like The Little Engine That Could as they find the extent and limits of their abilities. This could mean letting them spill their water or spend an extra few moments trying to grasp that toothbrush or pull the books off the shelf. The clean-up can be frustrating, but research has shown that autonomy in babies underpins psychological health and well-being and predicts executive cognitive functioning in preschool and later.

What other instances contribute to serious infant falls? A small percentage of falls were associated with babies falling when mothers fell asleep during breastfeeding. This seemed to be more common during early infancy when mothers are tired and sleep-deprived. It helps to have a support person nearby, and this is where fathers can play a role. In a study conducted in Italy, fathers of newborn children were trained in multiple ways to support their partners in managing breastfeeding. In all cases, teaching fathers to manage and support their partners meant that babies were fully breastfed at 6 months of age. A partner’s support can thus go a long way not just in keeping the baby safe but also in the overall success of breastfeeding.

Movement and sleep-sensing technology can also be leveraged to alert breastfeeding mothers when they are dozing off. Anti-sleep apps and safety devices are available in the market for long-distance drivers. Could they be easily adapted for use by mothers, particularly while feeding the baby? I hope we have some more readily available solutions to help mothers in the months to come. We must come together as a community to support parents.

What message do we take home from this? Common causes of falls are when babies fall from furniture and baby products, and in some cases, during breastfeeding when mothers fall asleep. Keeping these contexts in mind can help us be more vigilant in these circumstances and recruit the support of another person until technology can give us solutions. While we must keep infants safe, they also need to develop their self-confidence by exploring the world around them and practicing autonomy.