Shopping Carts: Is there added danger, or should people pay better attention?

I was browsing on Facebook while taking a break from a paper I’m working on, and an article from CafeMom popped up on my feed. Every once in a while, they get something interesting, so I clicked and decided to blow a few minutes reading the article.

The article in question was about a ‘Simple Thing Moms Use Every Day Causes Thousands Of Toddler Head Injuries’. It was about shopping carts, and the seats the kids sit in. And I’m not talking putting the car infant seat on the cart or anything like that. That is definitely unsafe… but the cart with a child of the proper age and size in the seat.

Article: Simple Thing Moms Use Every Day Causes Thousands Of Toddler Head Injuries 

Come on. Really?

Who else can see the big boo-boo in this
pic? Anyone else see the un-buckled
strap? 

Out of those statistics in the article, that “24,000 children are sent to the ER due to shopping cart injuries “ each year, how many of those kids weren’t being properly supervised by the caregiver? The article tells about how 70.4% of the accidents are due to children falling out of the cart. If you’re keeping a proper eye on the child, how in the world is it falling out of the cart? I’m not talking about hovering over the kid the whole time, but it’s usually pretty easy to tell when the child is trying to stand up in the cart or is shaking the cart so rough that it could tip… how hard is it to step in and, if the behavior persists, take the child out of the basket and hold their hand while finishing the shopping? I’ve had to do that a few good times, take my daughter out of the cart and hold her hand while I pushed the cart, all because she would not sit still in the cart and knows how to un-strap her seat belt in the cart.

The other 29.6% of injuries are from children  running into the cart, falling over it, having a body part trapped in it, or having the cart tip over… that sounds a LOT like someone not keeping control of their children in the store, and letting them run wild… I’m not saying children should be perfect little angels, but they don’t need to be running rampant in the store either. Think about it, how many times on a trip to the store have we seen a child running up the aisles, the parents not watching at all, while the child gets into everything??

It’s not safe. And we can’t and shouldn’t blame anyone but the parents if something happens to happen. My daughter walks alongside us at the store. She is 2 and a half. If she were to climb a shelf because we stopped watching (Which does not happen, by the
way, she generally knows if not in the basket, to hold a hand) then that would be our fault. Not a faulty shelf, not the store, not a shopping cart… but ours.

You take responsibility when the lack of attention results in the child getting injured. And it sucks, you feel like shit, you learn from it, and you move on. This is like the people who were misusing the Bumbo seats, so they had to do a recall… When the item is used the right way, the way it’s meant to be used, it’s safe. It’s not safe when used improperly, nothing is.

Example of Child Running Rampant.
(Yes, I am aware it's a commercial)

My TV is safe on the entertainment center. It’s not safe if I try to play catch with it. My blender is safe on the counter, used as instructed. It’s not safe if I set it in the bathtub and stick my hand in, and turn it on. Same concept.

And I understand the article saying we can’t watch the child constantly AND shop for food at the same time. That said however, I see many parents who just wander up and down the aisle while the child is parked and sitting in the cart, bored as all get out and trying to get up and stand in the seat. And MANY of those parents would get pissed if someone stepped in and told their child to sit in their seat so they didn’t fall.

Please, if you’re going to use a shopping cart, be safe. Watch your child. Take responsibility and keep your child seated and buckled, or make them hold your hand while you walk. So many accidents could be prevented with proper use of the shopping cart.