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THE DANGERS OF leaving hair straighteners where children can access them are being highlighted in a new campaign.
The campaign has been launched today in Northern Ireland to raise awareness of the dangers hair straighteners can pose to children, including causing burns which can require hospital admission and surgical intervention, such as plastic surgery.
The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA) and Home Accident Prevention Northern Ireland (HAPNI) are working in partnership with the Belfast Health and Social Care Trust on the Too Hot to Handle campaign, following a rise in the number of children attending A&E at the Royal Belfast Hospital for Sick Children with hair straightener burns.
Hospital
The campaign, which is funded with £5,000 from the Electrical Safety Council (ESC), was officially launched by RoSPA’s chief executive Tom Mullarkey.
Figures from the Children’s Hospital show that:
Hair straighteners can reach temperatures in excess of 200 degrees, which is hot enough to fry an egg, and can take as long as 40 minutes to cool down.
According to the campaign, horrific burn injuries can occur very quickly to children because their skin can be 15 times thinner than adults.
The most common location for a child to sustain a serious hair straightener burn is on their hand, but injuries have also been sustained to the head, arm and foot.
Safety
RoSPA, the Trust and the ESC say these burns they can be prevented by following a simple safety code:
The campaign will run until March 2013. Ita McErlean, RoSPA’s home safety manager in Northern Ireland, said:
It doesn’t always take a flame to burn and it is easy to forget that hair straighteners remain hot for a good period of time, even after use. Turning hair straighteners off and storing them in a heat resistant bag out of the sight and reach of inquisitive children, is a simple way to ensure that the risk of receiving a nasty burn is reduced.
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I got a burn off one a couple years ago, was sore as hell and took ages to heal!
God help a child getting burnt with one of them!
Like most accidents it’s just down to carelessness, I know we’re all busy & time is tight but taking the time to put stuff up out of the way & being more careful is a hell of a lot better than a child being injured & living with regret.
How the hell does a 3-mth-old get burnt with straighteners?
Because people leave babies on beds & sit there doing their hair at the same time thinking this is great I’m getting ready & watching the baby, then put the straightener down & take there eye off both unfortunately
I thinks it’s very strange !! A straighteners would need to be placed very close to the baby…..a 3 month old can’t move or roll. Very negligent in my opinion !!
Why would you put a hot hair straightners on the bed? Wouldnt it burn the bed or set it alight even?
never had mine anywhere near baby , easy enough to do somewhere safe, have burnt myself though , ouch
about time we put people straight on this issue
I wonder do blonde people use straighteners more often than all the other hair colours available out of a bottle ….put together. :) and if it was the case would there be an increase in injuries..As you can see I
Don’t need this hair device.
I know of someone who’s daughter got burnt this way!! The child was over a year old and the mammy thought she had put it away safe enough!!! My friend said she will never forget the scream of her child sadly a lesson learned the hard way!! About time this was mentioned thankfully the child has no scarring but the doc said she was lucky my friend had an aloe verse plant and while on the way to the hospital she rubbed her child’s hand in the sap that come from the plant it’s helps with burns! Only took a second to happen thankfully has never happened again!!!
This is news?
It’s trying to education through warning of dangers!
You could find more Hair Straightener products here:
Hi Barry, The number of hair straightener burns among children has doubled in recent years :(
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