Shopping for a safe cart
BY KAREN MANSFIELDTHE OBSERVER-REPORTER
 PHOTO BY Susan Pollard Karen Alarez with Abby using the baby comfort strap in a shopping cart. |
"I see parents who don't strap their kids in, I see kids trying to climb out of the back of the shopping cart, or try to stand up while their mom leaves them to go the MAC machine," said Morris. "You want to go get them yourself."
Safety advocates say the design of the carts is at fault, and one organization is sponsoring a national contest to design a safer cart. But one shopping cart manufacturer say poor parental supervision is to blame.
Each year, about 25,000 children end up in hospital emergency rooms because of a shopping cart injury, reports U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission. Some escape with minor scrapes, but about two-thirds of the children suffer serious injuries such as concussions, fractures, and internal injuries.
"We have seen injuries from shopping carts and it's a concern," said Joseph Gerard, nursing administrator at Children's Hospital, Pittsburgh.
Gerard said the emergency room has treated a variety of shopping cart injuries, including fractured arms and legs and ligament injuries that occurred when a parent tried to put a child in a cart or pull them out. Other accidents occur when clothing gets caught in shopping cart.
"We recently treated a young child who suffered severe hand lacerations when his mom was putting her shopping cart away and his hands got caught between carts," Gerard said.
One mother's solution
Karen Alvarez knows how quickly accidents happen.
It took only a moment for Alvarez's then 18-month-old son, Kyle, to stand up in a shopping cart at a grocery store and fall out, tipping the cart on top of him.
"It happened so fast," said Alvarez of San Ramon, Calif. "I had just turned around for a second."
Kyle wasn't seriously hurt, but his mishap led Alvarez, a homemaker-turned-entrepreneur, to devise a padded, 15-inch safety strap. In October 1997. Alvarez founded Baby Comfort Co. and sells the Baby Comfort strap nationwide for about $8. You can check store locations at http://babycomfort.com
"It's something I would have purchased if it were available," said Alvarez. "There's nothing worse than a child injuring himself in a 100 percent preventable situation."
For Alvarez, the strap offers other advantages. Often, shopping carts don't have straps. If they do, they can be broken or dirty.
"Shoppers who pick up raw meat and poultry push the cart by the handle, and then children who are teething end up chewing it. The strap prevents that," said Alvarez.
There are stores that do their best to maintain cleanliness.
At Kmart in McMurray, a professional service comes in four times a year to clean and check the store's carts. "They clean them using high pressure washers, fix anything mechanically wrong, change straps, and check safety seats to make sure they're in good condition," said manager Dave Neu.
Linda Hermann of Washington, a mother of three, said that safety is a top issue when she takes her children shopping and that the design of shopping carts is not child-friendly.
"Safety's definitely an important issue for me," said Herrmann on a recent trip to Giant Eagle at Washington Mall. Herrmann was doing her best to fill her cart while daughter Katie, 3, tugged at her and her son, Andrew, 11 months, wriggled in the front.
"It's tough. I worry more about my daughter when she stands up in the back of the cart. She wants to get out and help. And my older son tries to ski on the side of it," said Herrmann, who while in Florida saw carts with comfortable, double-seats for children and wider bases.
Redesigning carts
Before shopping carts can be considered safe, the design needs to be overhauled, say child advocates.
"Transportation in shopping carts of current design should be prohibited," urged Ohio State University researchers, and changes in design should be made.
At least one organization is working on the problem. The Junior Engineering Technical Society, a nonprofit group, is sponsoring a national design contest, where high school students throughout the nation are competing to improve the traditional shopping cart style.
Carts created by students included an elongated hexagon-shaped cart made of Plexiglas, with six wheels and a toddler seat that comes with a belt and lap bar.
UNR Industries Inc., which makes shopping carts, blames the accidents on poor parental supervision, and not design.
"In our view, it doesn't have anything to do with the cart design," said a UNR spokesman.
Children Hospital's Gerard encourages parents to closely supervise children on shopping trips. He advises parents not to put children over the age of three in carts and to never put children in the back of carts.
"Generally, carts are designed for toddlers up to the age of three. Over the age of three, we'd ask that they walk alongside of parents, about an arm's length away from the cart," said Gerard."
And for children whose legs are so tired that they beg to hold on to the cart, surf-style?
"No way," said Gerard. "No riding on the sides."
Last year, in an effort to alert parents about shopping cart accidents, the CPSC, the National SAFE KIDS Campaign, the Food Marketing Institute, Johnson & Johnson and Safe-Strap Co., Inc., kicked off a campaign called "Buckle Up, Protect Your Child." The goal of the nationwide effort is to provide families with information and safety gear necessary to reduce the number of falls from shopping carts.
"Parents have to know that their child's safety is their responsibility," said Alvarez
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Copyright ©1998 Observer Publishing Co. Last updated Monday, August 3, 1998