Parents have been warned not to let their child sit on their lap while going down a slide as it is incredibly dangerous.
 
According to The Mail Online, experts have discovered that the chances of a child breaking their leg increase dramatically if they are sitting on their parent’s lap.
 
The study, which was published by the American Academy of Paediatrics, discovered that the most common injury amongst younger children is a fracture.
 
Experts say a child is less likely to be injured when they go down a slide on their own. However, they are increasing the risk of injuring their leg if they go down the slide with their parent.
 
Children will travel down a slide faster with an adult due to the extra weight. The force of this can cause your child’s foot to get caught at the end of the slide, which can then lead to a fracture or a break.
 
 
Dr. Charles Jennissen, who was the lead author of this study, says that many parents think they are helping by assisting their children on the slide, but they are actually causing more harm than good.
 
“Parents had no idea that doing so could possibly give their child such a significant injury. They often say they would never have done it had they known.”
 
Researchers discovered that children under the age of two are the most common group that suffer from slide related injuries.
 
According to researchers, sliding down the slide with a parent is the main cause behind most children’s injuries: “The majority of injuries sustained on slides by infants and young toddlers are lower extremity fractures.”
 
In the United Kingdom, roughly 40,000 children are taken to the hospital with playground-related injuries. It is believed that one-fifth of these are caused by slides.
 
Approximately one-fourth of these injuries are broken bones. In the past, the main causes of these injuries have been from children running up slides, climbing on them and being pushed by another child.
 
 
The experts behind the US study presented their findings at the national conference of the American Academy of Paediatrics.
 
They stated that it is irresponsible of parents to go down on a slide with their child because it causes so many injuries, especially amongst toddlers.
 
They encourage parents to take extra care in playgrounds, saying: "Families should be counselled that if they elect to do so, extreme caution is necessary to avoid the child catching their foot on the slide surfaces".

Latest

Trending