High chair injuries in children

March 2010

There were 692 high chair related injury cases recorded on the Victorian Emergency Minimum Dataset over the ten-year period January 2000 to June 2009, an average of 73 cases per year. A further 32 hospital admissions were recorded on the Victorian Admitted Episodes Dataset for 2006-2008 (the only two years where high chair falls were separately coded).

Age: Children less than 2 years of age accounted for most of the high chair related injuries, with 42% of ED presentations aged 1 year, and another 42% aged less than 1 year old. Of the admissions, 69% of injuries were to 1-year-olds, and 16% to children aged less than 1.

Figure 1: High chair related injury ED presentations by age (January 2000 to June 2009)

Figure 2: High chair related injury admissions by age (July 2006 to June 2008)

Gender: Males accounted for 53% of cases in ED presentations and 57% of hospital admissions cases.

Cause: Among ED presentations, more than half of the injuries were caused by falls from a height up to 1 metre (65%), followed by falls from over 1 metre (29%) and being struck by/colliding with an object (5%).

Nature of injury: Among ED presentations, superficial injuries were the most common injury type (32%), followed by intracranial injuries (16%) and open wounds (15%). Among hospital admissions, the main injury types were fractures (25%) and intracranial injuries (22%).

Body region: Sixty-four percent of high chair related injuries were to the head/face/neck, 10% were to the upper extremity, and 3% to the lower extremity in ED presentations. Among admissions, 72% of injuries were to the head/face/neck and 16% were to the lower extremity.

Figure 3: High chair injury ED presentations by body region injured

Figure 4: High chair injury admissions by body region injured

Activity: Among ED presentations, injuries were most likely to occur when the child was engaged in leisure activities (39%), followed by vital activities i.e. resting, eating, or sleeping (21%), and being nursed/cared for (10%).

Location: Among ED presentations and hospital admissions, the location where the injury occurred was most often recorded as in the home, accounting for 90% and 66% of cases respectively.

Recommendations: For a full set of safety recommendations, see the “Keeping Baby Safe” booklet on the Consumer Affairs Victoria website: www.consumer.vic.gov.au/CA256902000FE154/Lookup/CAV_Publications_Product_Safety_2/$file/Keeping_baby_safe_Oct08.pdf

Data source: Victorian Emergency Minimum Dataset (VEMD January 2000 to June 2009 (10 years). The Victorian Admitted Episodes Dataset (VAED): July 2006 to June 2008 (2 years).
Search Strategy: Cases in the VEMD were selected by searching text narratives using the terms ‘high chair,' ‘highchair,' and ‘feeding chair'. Selected cases were then manually checked for relevance. Cases in the VAED were selected using the code ‘W07.4 - Fall involving high-chair'.