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Nationwide Children's Hospital
Jackie Sherrill was shocked when her daughter, Morgan, 22 months, fell face-first with her bottle, cutting her lip and chipping a tooth.
Of all the things Jackie Sherrill had to worry about while juggling school, work and two kids, someone breaking a tooth on a baby bottle was least among them.
But that’s exactly what happened earlier this year, when Sherrill’s 20-month-old daughter, Morgan, took a nose-dive off a couch and landed face-first on the edge of an ottoman.
“She had her bottle in her mouth,” recalled Sherrill, 26, from Grove City, Ohio. “She must have hit right at that hard spot.”
The 9-ounce bottle of chocolate milk slammed into Morgan’s face, cutting her lip and chipping one of her baby teeth.
Sherrill, a nursing student, was able to calm her down and take her for treatment, but the incident was shocking: “You just don’t think of that,” she said.
It turns out that Morgan is among thousands of kids -- especially unsteady toddlers -- who get hurt every year while using bottles, pacifiers and sippy cups.
The seemingly innocuous ba-bas and binkies caused cuts, bruises and other injuries serious enough to send 45,398 children under age 3 to the nation’s emergency rooms between 1991 and 2010, according to the first large-scale analysis of the problem. The findings were published Monday in the journal Pediatrics.
“Baby bottles, pacifiers and sippy cups are extremely popular. Basically every baby uses them at some point,” said Dr. Sarah A. Keim, the principal researcher for the center for behavioral health at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio. “There really hasn’t been much research at all on these products.”
Keim and her colleagues looked at data collected by the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System, or NEISS, and then extrapolated information to the rest of the U.S.
To her surprise, Keim found that there were an average of 2,270 cases each year where child was hurt while using bottles, pacifiers or sippy cups.
Dr. Nancy Snyderman's safety tips for parents with young children
That’s a child treated every four hours, the researchers said.
In most of the cases, 86 percent, the kids were injured when they fell with the object. Bottles were involved in nearly two-thirds of the injuries, while pacifiers accounted for about 20 percent and sippy cups just over 14 percent. About 70 percent of youngsters suffered cuts, and about 70 percent were hurt on or near their mouths, the study found. Others suffered soft tissue or dental injuries.
The trouble wasn’t the kind most parents think of when they ponder harm from the objects, particularly pacifiers and sippy cups. More than 16 million pacifiers and 1 million sippy cups were recalled by federal officials since 1991, but usually it was because they posed risks of choking or poisoning by cup materials.
Instead, Keim noted, the injuries are the kind that occur when a child is moving around the home while drinking from a bottle or cup or sucking on a pacifier.
“They’re convenient, they help quiet a fussy child,” she said.
But, as the injuries indicate, they might also hold potential harm.
Part of the problem may be the widespread use of bottles, pacifiers and sippy cups long past when medical and child development experts advise.
Pacifier use is advised by the American Academy of Pediatrics, for instance, but usually during infancy, up to age 6 months, to help prevent sudden infant death syndrome, or SIDS.
The AAP and the American Academy of Dentistry advise that babies move directly from the bottle to a lidless cup by 12 months to prevent dental decay.
In real life, however, an Arizona study found that about 45 percent of children ages 13 months to 3years still used bottles. A 2011 Canadian study found that 86 percent of children ages 1 to 2 use sippy cups. And a 2008 study in the United Kingdom found that more than 18 percent of toddlers were still using pacifiers at age 3.
Clearly, cutting kids off cold turkey can be tough. But Keim said there are ways to allow children to enjoy their bottles and pacis and prevent injury, too.
“If kids are in the habit of sitting when they’re eating or drinking, it’s the kind of thing parents might want to consider,” she said.
In Jackie Sherrill’s case, Morgan’s accident marked the end of an era.
“She loves drinking out of regular cups anyway,” Sherrill said.
Related stories:
- Two children die in hot cars as risky season heats up
- Hurt on the stairs: Child injured every six minutes in the U.S.
- CDC: Kids' accidental deaths down 30 percent
Leave a Comment:
I have always thought that sippy cups were dumb. After bottles it is time for a real cup. Sippy cups are just one more thing to break your children from.
I agree. My kids never used sippy cups - yeah, I had more messes to clean up, but so what, they learned quickly enough. I also didn't let them wonder around with their bottles when they were able to move around - they learned to sit at the kitchen table when eating and drinking. No food or drinking anywhere but at the kitchen table. It's not that hard.
Yup, don't cry over spilt milk if you are going to take sippy cups out of use. But damn are they convenient. This just tells me that if you are going to continue to use them, pay closer attention to your child when they are handling them.
The sooner you can transition away from a bottle, pacifier, sippy cup the better. Less extra stuff to clean and care for and it helps with, should I say this? Potty training!
The sooner you teach your kids that food and drinks are for the kitchen and dining room only, the better. The wandering eaters are the ones that think it's okay to wander around a restaurant, too. Sit them down, let them get used to it...your carpet and restaurant patrons will thank you.
I think this is an over-reaction. My three babies all managed to hurt themselves and all three chipped a tooth at some point, but all from just plain falling and tripping not from a sippy cup.
Seriously, all kids get hurt by something at some point and you can't insulate them from the world completely. My boys are rough and tumble and get hurt on stairs, doors, counter tops, chairs, stools, outside, in the car and from one another. Am I supposed to eliminate all of these things as well? Sorry, I don't think the risk of injury is worth cutting them off - too much of an over reaction.
You are correct @TheOverlord
Sipyp cup or no, children can and will fall on something hard, and will still suffer cuts, bruises, and chipped teeth. We used to call this "being a child".
This whole article is nothing but more fear propaganda. Gotta boost the market for bubble-wrap!
So if you let a 22-month-old run around with a bottle or sippy cup, do they keep it upright at all times so it doesn't drip? I highly doubt it. That's why my kids use sippy cups at the table, sitting down.
I can't really envision how one could get hurt on a pacifier, but I never gave them to my kids anyway. I like to see their beautiful faces and hear them try to talk. It's sad to see kids run around with binkies permanently attached to their faces. And who gives a 22-month-old chocolate milk anyway?
Just because all kids fall down and get hurt sometimes is no reason to think it shouldn't be minimized if possible. Not when there's a child treated in the ER every four hours for these injuries. What a waste of health care dollars! What a lot of needless pain and suffering.
Why not teach kids to sit down while they eat and drink? Bottles shouldn't be used by toddlers anyway, as they contribute to tooth decay.
What's dumb, is this entire story.
"Bottles, binkies and sippy cups can hurt kids, study finds"
Yet, in the very first example they provide, it's the fall that hurt the kid, the bottle was incidental. If the kid had been drinking from a cup, or gnawing on a TV remote, or whatever. . .the result could have just as easily been the same.
In 2009, there were over 4 million babies born.
"To her surprise, Keim found that there were an average of 2,270 cases each year where child was hurt while using bottles, pacifiers or sippy cups."
So each year, approximately 1 in 1806 babies encounters this problem. This whole article is nothing but filler.
If a kid is old enough to drink chocolate milk, they are old enough to use a regular cup. Yeah, you can use a small plastic cup but there is absolutely no reason for a bottle or sippy cup. That is just another easy out for lazy parenting. Sorry but I raised three sons and if they wanted something to drink, they asked and got a cup at the table and learned to sit and drink it in the kitchen. They were not allowed to wander around the house holding something to sip out of. Too many gadgets to complicate things and waste money on....
I never even heard of a "sippy cup" until my my fourth niece arrived 20 years ago. My sister's three daughters and one son went from breast to bottle to small cup and they were taught to drink only in the kitchen. Just like Meezermom59's kids, there was no wandering around the house with either drinks or food. The fourth niece was born to my brother and his wife. They had all the gadgets to make life easier for everyone. I think the whole dishwasher was filled with those gadgets. What a total waste of money. A small cup will last just as long as one of those sippy cups and cost less to boot.
Lazy parenting??? I am the mom of two-year old twins and they *gasp* use sippy cups. They stopped using bottles at 12 months. Their ped (a professor of pediatrics at U Penn) doesn't have a problem with it. I don't see how using a sippy cup makes someone a lazy parent.
Articles like these fan the flames for mommy wars, where all the parenting snobs come in and degrade others' parenting choices while flaunting theirs. I don't understand some people's need to criticize the choices of parents that they don't agree with... I don't agree with using crib bumpers, attachment parenting or solids before 1 year but I would never criticize others who do. Making a choice different from yours does not mean that someone else is a lazy parent!
I think giving your 22-month old chocolate milk is worse than the sippy cup itself. Give the child some plain milk... why add the unnecessary sugar? No one wants to deal with your child's ADHD that could have been prevented by feeding them real food like fruit and vegetables.
Of all the things to worry about, a chipped baby tooth is not high on the list. If they don't fall with a cup, they'll fall with a toy. Or do a nose plant into the sidewalk (like mine did at that age).
My younger son was sitting in an armchair with daddy, purposely dove out of the chair into a toy bucket, and knocked out a tooth.
My older son scraped two different parts of his forehead within a couple weeks of each other. I have a picture from before the scars faded, and I joke that that's where his horns were removed.
Kids will hurt themselves no matter what. That's how they learn to be careful. Just make sure you do what you can to prevent serious injury.
Exactly the point. Kids fall and sometimes they get hurt. This article did not mention any correlation with accidents and having a sippy cup, or binkie, or whatever.
Another wasted "study".
Why not just swaddle kids in bubble wrap until they reach the age of 18? What next, no stuffed animals because the child might put the fuzzie stuff up his or her nose?
LOL--you make me giggle. I agree 100%. You can't protect them 100% of the time, even if you try. If the truth be known...a sippy cup SAVED my sons life. We were at the lake behind our home with our dog who was on a retractable leash. The dog did a turn around me....and ended up catching my almost 2 year old (at the time) in the leash and in the water he fell. My back was as I was trying to untangle myself from the leash...and when I turned around and saw my baby in the water...I screamed. A friend jumped in...pulled him out by the back of his shirt. My son still had the sippy cup in his mouth and actually used it to breath with his mouth while he was in the water. He did not inhale any water (which he would have done had he not had the cup with air in it) and was completely fine after being face down in the water. At the time, I was trying to break him of his cup habit. After that....I decided to let him have it whenever he wanted. Wonder if the will do a story about THAT. LOL And BTW--the fuzzie stuff in stuffed animals probably causes cancer, too. (SMH(
Stuffed animals and bumpers have already been declared hazardous. Part of this is due to parents relying on monitors rather than actually physically checking on the kiddos and making the necessary adjustments to toys, blankies, and other stuff in the crib.
How is it that the world population has grown almost to the point of outgrowing the earth if it is so darn deadly out there?
Baby monitors are stupid. There's no reason you can't check on your own baby!
by age 22 months, babies should have been weaned from the bottle, and certainly they should not be running around playing with a bottle of CHOCOLATE MILK in their mouths.
Seems you and Jessica (comment 7 below) need to get on the same page. She says 20 months.
Once you two decide what is right for the rest of us, let us know. Thanks in advance.
They state 20 months, but that is really not the issue. The issue is at either 20 months or 22 months the child should not be on a bottle.
All of you people who think children should not be on a bottle by any given age amy not know that there are other things going on in that child's life that maek the bottle either necessary for development or it is not a priority.
Quit judging.----and I breast fed both of mine until they were 2 and they went straight to cups at that time.
my sons dr suggested NOT taking my son off the bottle until he was after 2. Just because you dont think a kid she be on a bottle, doesnt mean everyone should take them away...
You're probably one of those people who took the bottle away the day your kid turned 1 (or even younger) There is NO reason why a kid should be taken off a bottle at the magical age of 1yr. In fact, kids have a natural reflex to suck on something, and I would rather it be a bottle, than a toy...
That reflex doesnt leave until after they are 2.
If you have an issue with an older toddler with a bottle, dont look.
BeccaR: Actually, the sucking reflex extinguishes at about 4 - 6 months old in healthy children, after that, it is voluntary and no longer reflexive.
But Becca, do you fill your child's bottle with chocolate milk? I just can't think of any reason to have a baby chug sugar. They will get enough of that in their lifetimes. To have a baby running around sipping at a sugar solution is just stupid. Plain milk or water is adequate for nutrition, hydration and any sucking needs. All she is doing is ruining her child's palate and teeth.
no, my oldest is 3, and wont even touch flavored milk. Ive only ever put milk, formula or water, except maybe once, I put juice in a bottle, because he lost his sippy cup...
I dont agree with her putting chocolate milk in a bottle (or giving to a toddler at all) but Im just saying that using a bottle at that age is not necessarily a bad thing. There is no real reason to take the bottle away at 1. Its an arbitrary date, that doesnt exist in nature. when people breastfed more, their kids would be breastfed til well past 2 and even 3yrs old, so I dont see why you "have" to take the bottle away at 1...
What can't hurt a child?
I dunno. A dead Doberman, maybe?
Exactly, what an asinine study! How many kids ware treated for hitting the floor or the ground with nothing in their mouth? Falling and getting hurt is part of the process of growing up.
A coulpe of weeks ago they were promoting crawling helmets. WTF.
So let me get this straight...
A baby does a face-plant off the couch onto the ottoman and we blame bottles and sippy cups for the injury?
I have kids and yes, I get the point of the story but what do we blame if the baby didn't have a sippy cup? The ottoman?
Do we blame the scissors when we run with them and get hurt?
It's a slow news day I guess. Time to go create some hysteria.
The sky is falling!
They need to replace all news broadcasts with one anchorman who sits there shouting: DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!!! for ~30 minutes. Okay, less the time for sports scores and the weather forecast. Or would that lack the media's usual attempts at subtlety?
This article is right up there with the one about needing to put helmets on babies that are crawling because they might bumo their heads. If you think about it, 1 child going to the ER every 4 hours all across the US is a tiny number. I really don't think this article deserves much attention, other than as a warning to not let your kids walk around with stuff (anything, not just bottles) in their mouths.
So, given that there are about 5K hospitals in the US, that means that, taken as an average, each hospital would see one child injured every two years in this manner. Wow. Slow news day, eh?
At 20 months, she should not have a bottle in her month!!!!!
Do you know better than my sons dr? I dont think so.. You have an issue with it, dont look
Excuse me, I never said I had an issue with it nor did I say I knew better then your Dr. My son was off his bottle a few days after he turned 1. Being amost 2 years old is to old to be breast feed or on a bottle. You have to cut the cord!!!!
Glad someone mentioned breastfeeding. Everyone on here is upset about the kid being on a bottle at 22 months, but last week we were given an article about breastfeeding till they're in preschool and a lot of "super moms" seemed perfectly ok with that. So it's bad to bottle feed past 1 year, but breastfeeding for an extra 2-3 is fine?
How about pampers? They contain cotton fibers..let them poop and pea on the floor, in their high chair (those will go next as causing babies to "be afraid of heights." I used cloth diapers...something in those might make them sick too. Oh..and let's take away ALL toys..we just don't know what's in those...do we? How about their clothing" Whats in that? Maybe they should be butt naked to protect them from the "evil cloth fibers." Shoes are next. These cause the feet to conform to certain configuration in order to walk in them. So, now we have naked kids with bowed feet, no toys and pooping and peeing everywhere, including in your lap because "high chairs" can "be dangerous" too.
No no no....we can't let them go naked because THEN they will be more likely to abosorb the toxins in the environment through their thin fragile skin. Those toxins will cause cancer, autism, seizures and slow development and probably those bowed feet you talk about. I say we create clothes out of BPA free plastic wrap, not let them leave the house until they are at least 22 years of age. Then again....the plastic wrap might become entangled over their heads and they might suffocate. Ugh. Back to the drawing board..... ;o)
Okay the best way to solve all this is don't have any kids.
Judd, that was my solution! I just couldn't bring myself to a place where I would have to say sippy cup.
I'll bet the breast feeding mom (hot!) on the cover of TIME magazine doesn't have these problems.
This story is a mess. The headline reads as a caution that kids' items can be dangerous to their health, but the example they use is a kid that takes a header off a couch and chips a tooth on a bottle, as if the bottle is the problem. A kid falling head first off something is bound to result in some sort of injury, even if it's minor. The kid could have fallen on a toy or some other hard object. The bottle is incidental.
Then the whole story becomes about the age to which kids should have pacifiers or bottles. There's no focus to this story.
This must be one of those news articles that's compiled by a computer algorithm.
I agree. The entire story is just silly. Journalism desperation at its finest. If I was MSNBC I would request a refund.
Sorry, but I think all of the "research" is baloney!! If children of this age (6 months and up) don't have pacifiers, sippie cups or bottles in their mouths, then they will have thumbs, blankets, regular cups, food (you get the picture), in their mouths. Children of this age group are more accident prone because they are in the process of learning many new things everyday. Most children are hurt, due to excessive falling and stumbling, from learning how to walk-do we stop them from learning this very important task??!! This is just something else for someone to "discover" about what parents shouldn't do. News has to come from somewhere so sometimes people just have to find someone to investigate and report about. This is another hogwash story!
I'm more concerned that a mother gives her 20 month old chocolate milk.
Exactly...there is plenty of time for sugar filled drinks later in life...no need to start so early with them.
My favorite comment is this subtle way of saying... teach better habits!!!
“If kids are in the habit of sitting when they’re eating or drinking, it’s the kind of thing parents might want to consider,” she said.
I remember the first time my son hit his head on my watch. I thought I was the worst dad in the world. He was totally fine. He fell out of his seat that was about 2-3 inches off the floor. The Doctor told me it was fine and that the same thing happened to another parent who had the chair on top of a 5 foot counter... which is idiotic.
Binkies dont chip teeth... absent minded parents who want to find fault in everyone but themselves do!
A child falls off a couch, busts a lip and cracks a tooth, and you blame the bottle?? How about, blame the actual fall! Kids run with things all the time, whether a bottle, pacifier, toy, food, whatever... kids get hurt. Things happen. Instead of blaming a product (especially the BOTTLE), maybe do some research in to understanding that kids will get bumped and bruised and fall. It happens. That's how they learn to not do things!
My son face-planted on the floor when he miss calculated his hand placement while crawling. Can i blame the floor design? Damn hard wood floor shouldn't be so hard!
Why is a kid that old drinking from a bottle? And running around the house with a drink in the first place?
Another assinine story compliments of MSNBC.
This is ridiculous. Any parent with common sense doesn't let their kid run around with sippy cups, bottles or even lollipops in their mouths. Kids should eat & drink sitting down - preferably at the dining table. This isn't a problem with the sippy cup companies -these parents need to use their common sense.
just an fyi... the child was not running around
This is another one of those very stupid reports about very, stupid parents and people who have NEVER had kids!
No freaking common sense and so all the rest of the worlds children should suffer!
Those parents need to get off their high horses and stop making out like it was the items fault INSTEAD of the very, stupid parents.
I think what we have here is actually two discussions. One that you should transition a child to whatever appropriate containing for drinking matches their age as well as their development.
The second discussion is whether or not in fact the object the child was carrying was the direct causality of the injury. As if to say that the blanket, bottle, or sippy cup was inherently defective or harmful in some way. Instead of where the focus of the discussion should have been is that parents with small children should be mindful whenever their child is in motion and carrying anything at all. Or far simpler be close enough to the child to attempt to take the object away while the child is in motion.
You are correct, there are two discussions here. But I am going to comment on the second one. I agree with the parents that say that children should only eat and drink in the kitchen (or dining room). I still have that rule and my kids are teenagers. Are these parents going to allow their children to run around with scissors as well? (you all know the saying...) There is always going to be a potential for injury if you have anything in your mouth when you are wandering around (including lollypops), or in this case, standing/jumping off the couch. Now really? The lady really did not think that what her kid was doing was dangerous or could result in an injury?
Allowing your precious angels to wander about eating and drinking creates little heathens like this...About a month ago, I was out to eat at a nice restaurant with a friend. A family comes and sits down and allows their children to run around the tables, disturbing the patrons. More than a few times, they ran into my elbow when I was attempting to put food into my mouth, which on one occasion caused the fork to stab the back of my throat. When I approached the parents to tell them to control their children, they were nasty with me! As a person who is supposed to know better, you DESERVE to get ripped a new one when you allow your children to act this way.
A sippy cup is a fine transition from bottle to cup. I've never known a child to have an issue with going off a sippy cup?!? Most kids are trying to take the lids off the cups to use them as a regular cup eventually anyways. To each their own on bottle vs. sippy vs. cup. Personally, the sippy cup was always available as soon as my son started sitting up to eat solid foods. He liked it more, and quickly the bottle wasn't good enough anymore. And, as soon as he started trying to take the lid off the sippy cup, we moved him to regular cups - or if out in restaurants, kid cups with straws.
I think the bigger problem is letting your kids run around with them. Once they're walking around, they need to know - if you need a drink, come over here (to the kitchen or table or wherever) and here is your cup. Take a drink (or two or three), put the cup down and finish playing. It's for multiple reasons. Safety, yes. No unnecessary messes, yes. AND - who wants to find a moldy cup of milk behind a couch three weeks later?!?! No thanks!
My son thought it was really cool to be able to get his own sippy cup out of the fridge (which usually just had water in it) and take some drinks and then put it back in the fridge.
For goodness sakes people! Kids are going to be kids! We cannot prevent every single injury that could possibly might happen in life folks, especially not in kids that age!
At the age of 3, my kid said "you fuch with Binky, I fuch with you, leave my fuching Binky alone"! She was pretty advanced for her age......LOL
Accidents happen and better it be a chipped baby tooth, than the chipped 2 front permanent teeth of an older kid. Mine did a cartwheel, her hand slipped and instantly became a vampire ;) After many years of bonding the 2 front teeth she's going to have to have them capped next year. So consider yourself lucky a new one will grow in! If it wasn't a sippy cup, it could have been a siblings head, a coffee table or basically anything else in the world that could chip a tooth. Silly studies for things like this!
OMG! These instruments have been used since the beginning of time and NOW, because of a few accidents, they are dangerous?? Get over it and get real!!!
seriously troy? they have been around and in mainstream use since world war 2, not the beginning of time. prior to that babies were breast fed and then transitioned to regular food, not stuff in a jar. children also did not have the orthodontic problems that are so common now.