Spring 2002
Volume 5 Number 2
• Are Infant Walkers Relics of the Past?
—Two word summary: they're dangerous.
Infant walkers, which allow an infant to move from place to place or room to room, have been targeted by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) as dangerous and lacking developmental benefit.
The AAP has called for a ban on the manufacture and sale of these devices based on data collected by the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System (NEISS) of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC).
Parents give varied reasons for using infant walkers such as believing that their infant is safer in a walker than lying on the floor. Some parents also believe that the walker will help the infant learn to walk.
Contrary to this belief, many studies have shown that the opposite is true. Infants between 6 months and 15 months of age who used walkers were slower to sit, crawl and walk, than infants who were not placed in walkers.
Regarding the safety issue, in 1999 it was reported that approximately 8,800 children under the age of fifteen months were treated for injuries associated with this type of walker. That number is staggering by itself but it represents a significant decrease from 1995, when over 20,000 injuries were reported.
This change can most likely be attributed to increased awareness of the dangers of walkers by parents, health care providers and consumer safety groups. It also reflects the introduction of devices which allow the infant to be placed in an upright, "standing" position, but does not allow the infant to move the device from place to place.
When rolling walkers are used, falls down stairs are overwhelmingly the most frequently reported cause of severe injuries (75 percent to 96 percent). Those injuries include fractures of arms and legs, closed head injuries (concussions, etc.) and skull fractures.
Other severe or fatal injuries reported with the use of these walkers are burns and poisonings (by allowing access to plants, dangling cords and unlocked sources of cleaning supplies), drownings (swimming pool or toilet) and suffocation (compression of the neck against the feeding tray following a tip-over). A factor which is usually not considered is that an infant in a walker can generate a speed of about 3 feet per second, therefore an accident can occur in a heartbeat, often while the infant is being supervised by an adult.
Between the years 1973 and 1998, 34 infants died from walker-related injuries.
Despite these statistics, over three million infant walkers are sold in the United States each year. Partners in Pediatrics supports the AAP resolution to ban the sale and manufacture of infant walkers and encourages parents who choose to place their infants in walkers, to do so in those devices where the infant is unable to move about.
For more information see:
American Academy of Pediatrics policy statement on infant walkers at www.aap.org
—Robert E. Freeman, PA-C
