Alert: Flat Screen TVs Dangerous for Toddlers

A new study published in the Journal of Neurosurgery: Pediatrics has found that tens of thousands of kids have been hurt by falling televisions. The researchers reviewed twenty nine studies from seven countries as they found that toddlers ages one to three years old are at the highest risk of injury.

When televisions or furniture tip, it can cause traumatic brain injury, neck injury or abdominal trauma that results in short and long term injuries including neurological defects or facial paralysis.

An earlier study published in the journal Pediatrics in 2013 found that 200,000 children in the U.S. alone had been sent to the emergency room by falling TVs over the past twenty years. The Consumer Product Safety Commission has estimated that 43,000 people are injured when televisions or furniture tip-over each year. More than 50 percent of them are children.

The number of injuries is expected to increase as more households get flat screen televisions with unstable bases. The switch has also led families to put heavier, older tvs on dressers and other furniture which can also be dangerous.

Earlier this year, IKEA issued a safety warning about the dangers of their furniture tipping after two children were killed. Ikea and the Consumer Product Safety Commission provided a free wall anchoring kit to consumers having purchased one of the 27 million pieces of furniture at risk.