Basic information for topics, such as “What is it?,” is available in the About Pediatric Injury section. Answers to other frequently asked questions (FAQs) specific to pediatric injury are in this section.
Some, but not all, types of pediatric injury are preventable. Research conducted and supported by NICHD provides evidence on how to prevent certain types of pediatric injuries or to reduce the chances of them happening. Select one of the following links to view news about NICHD research on pediatric injury:
- NICHD research findings on teen driving risk
- NICHD research findings on bullying
- NICHD research findings on spinal cord injury
- NICHD research findings on traumatic brain injury
Visit CDC’s Protect the Ones You Love website for more information about creating safe environments for children and preventing injuries.
NICHD conducts and supports research on pediatric injury, its treatments, and its long-term outcomes, but the primary federal sources of information on injury statistics and preventing pediatric injuries are CDC and the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC). CDC and CPSC provide a range of information for parents, caregivers, and families about ways to prevent childhood injury, safety recommendations, and product warnings and recalls. For more information, visit:
Parents can reduce the risk of sleep-related causes of infant death and injury in the following ways:
- Always place infants on their backs to sleep.
- Use a firm and flat sleep surface, such as a mattress in a safety-approved crib, covered by a fitted sheet with no other bedding or soft items in the sleep area.
- Share your room with baby, but not your bed. Keep baby in your room close to your bed, but on a separate surface designed for infants, ideally for baby’s first year, but at least for the first 6 months.
- Do not put soft objects, toys, crib bumpers, or loose bedding under baby, over baby, or anywhere in baby’s sleep area.
- Do not let your baby get too hot during sleep. Use sleep clothing that keeps baby warm without the need for loose blankets in the sleep area. Keep objects from covering baby’s face and head.
- Think about giving your baby a pacifier for naps and nighttime, but do not attach it to anything—like a string, clothing, toy, or blanket—that carries a risk of suffocation, choking, or strangulation.
- Avoid products that go against safe sleep recommendations, especially those that claim to prevent or reduce the risk for SIDS, suffocation, or reflux.
Find more detailed information about creating a safe infant sleep environment at NICHD’s Safe to Sleep® website.
BACK TO TOP