Everyone knows to be careful about the temperature of bath water for young children, but surveys have found that parents are less careful in the kitchen—and more children are scalded in the kitchen than in the bathroom. For an article in the latest issue of Pediatrics, a product safety consultant went through national data on kitchen injuries to children.

What the researcher wanted to know: How do young children get burned in the kitchen?

What she did: For this study, the researcher focused on children under 5 and on nonelectric cookware. She left out electric cookware because the injuries from pulling on an electrical cord are well understood and have already led to redesigned cords. She used data for 1997 to 2001 from the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, which has a network of hospitals that send in information on injuries. While this network includes only about 100 hospitals, it's designed to let researchers make estimates about the entire country.

What she found: During that six-year period, about 17,000 children age 5 and younger were treated for kitchen burns and scalds. About two thirds were scalds. In half of scald injuries, children either reached up and pulled a pot down on themselves or grabbed or spilled a pot on themselves. Hot water was the culprit in nearly half of scald injuries; grease was the next most common. Scalds were especially common among 1-year-olds—possibly because they're just learning to explore.

What the study means to you: While stoves in the United States are usually 36 inches high, the researcher writes, many children as young as 2 can reach much higher. They would have more trouble reaching pots on the back burners, though. The researcher recommends public health campaigns to tell parents about the dangers of kitchen burns.

Caveats: Other studies have found that burns are more frequent than scalds. It could be that by excluding injuries from electric cookware, the researcher missed burns from electric stoves.

Find out more: Kidshealth.org has information on burn prevention, including a section on kitchen burns.

Read the article: Drago, D.A. "Kitchen Scalds and Thermal Burns in Children Five Years and Younger." Pediatrics. January 2005, Vol. 115, No. 1, pp. 10-16.

Abstract online: http://pediatrics.aappublications.org