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Writer's pictureFuturo Latino Coalition

Poisonings at home, how to avoid them?

Did you know...? Annually, about 3 million people — many of them minors — ingest or have contact with a poisonous substance.

The task of parenting never ends and let's be honest, sometimes we just can’t avoid things to happen, sometimes there are accidents at home that are simply unpredictable, but what about those things that we do have control over or at least believe we have?

Poisonings are more common than we think and occur even when the children are in the care of an older adult at home, so it is very important to have safe places to store chemicals and/or toxics.

Among the most dangerous products are medicines, cleaning products, liquid nicotine, pesticides, polishers, disinfectants, gasoline, oils, and cleaning and vehicle maintenance products such as antifreeze and windshield wiper liquids. We must always be attentive about the proper handling at the home of all these items, but with greater reason when we have children at home.

Lately, there have been many cases of minors who become intoxicated with nicotine, so please, if you vape and use electronic cigarettes, make sure they are not easy to be reached by your kids, to keep the liquid nicotine spare parts under lock and key at all times and make sure that access is difficult for children since in small doses it can be deadly for them.

Something also that we do not consider and that is a real danger for our children is electronic equipment. Remote controls, key chains, children's music cards, books, ornament lights, horns, etc., may contain small button batteries that can cause injury if ingested due to the toxic substances they contain.

If your child is unconscious, not breathing, or has seizures because he or she was in contact with or ingested poisonous substances, call 911 or your local emergency number right away.

If your child has mild poisonous symptoms or even without symptoms, call Poison Help at 1-800-222-1222 and wait in line for help in Spanish.

Let’s raise awareness of the danger of poisoning and disseminate this information to save lives. During the week of March 20-26, 2022, National Poison Prevention Week is celebrated, let's participate in this campaign by informing ourselves.

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