Playgrounds and outdoor playground equipment can offer your child enjoyment, fresh air, and exercise, but they can also pose some safety hazards. Faulty equipment, improper surfaces, and careless behavior are just a few of the dangers that cause children on playgrounds to visit hospital emergency departments. To ensure that your children have the safest playground environment possible, follow these guidelines.

* In the United States, a child is injured on a playground every 2 1/2 minutes. * More than 200,000 children each year are treated in emergency departments for playground-related injuries. * More than 75% of playground injuries occur on a public playground. * Most playground injuries involve falls, and over half of the time the child's head and face is hurt. * Most of these injuries are preventable with proper supervision and safer playground equipment and design.

You can make the playground a place that's entertaining and safe for your children by checking equipment for potential hazards and following some simple safety guidelines. In addition, teaching your kids how to play safely is important: if they know the rules of the playground, it's less likely they'll become injured.

Safety Guidelines

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention funds the National Program for Playground Safety (NPPS), which works to prevent playground-related injuries by establishing detailed guidelines for safe playgrounds. According to the NPPS, t

he most important factors in evaluating the safety of any playground are surface, design and spacing, equipment installation, and maintenance.

The following types of equipment are not meant for safe playgrounds:

* animal figure swings * glider swings that hold more than one child at a time * swinging ropes that can fray, unravel, or form a noose (any kind of rope attached to play equipment poses a strangulation hazard, so never let your child tie jump ropes or leashes onto the equipment) * exercise rings (as used in gymnastics) and trapeze bars * Monkey bars: although people use the terms monkey bars, jungle gyms, and climbing equipment interchangeably, actual monkey bars are a specific type of climbing equipment with interior bars onto which a child may fall from a height greater than 18 inches. In the early 1980s, the CPSC stated that monkey bars were unsuitable for playgrounds. * trampolines: these are never appropriate for safe playgrounds

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