Personal care products life-threatening for kids

Parents, take a note. Researchers have found that personal care products such as shampoo, lotion and nail polish in the hands of young children can quickly lead to poisoning or chemical burns-like life-threatening situations.

Published in Clinical Pediatrics journal, the study found that more than 64,600 children below five years of age, were treated for injuries related to personal care products between 2002 and 2016 in the US.

"Kids this age can't read, so they don't know what they are looking at. They see a bottle with a colourful label that looks or smells like something they are allowed to eat or drink, so they try to open it and take a swallow. When the bottle turns out to be nail polish remover instead of juice, or lotion instead of yoghurt, serious injuries can occur," said the study co-author Rebecca McAdams from Nationwide Children's Hospital in the US.

The study found that most injuries from these products occurred when a child swallowed the product (75.7 per cent) or the product made contact with a child's skin or eyes (19.3 per cent) . These ingestions and exposures most often led to poisonings (86.2 per cent) or chemical burns (13.8 per cent).

According to the researchers, the top three product categories leading to injuries were nail care products (28.3 per cent), hair care products (27.0 per cent) and skin care products (25.0 per cent), followed by fragrance products (12.7 per cent).

"Since these products are often stored in easy-to-reach places and are not typically in child-resistant containers, it is easy for kids to reach and open the bottles," McAdams said.