Falls top list on claims for tots

Falls are the biggest cause of under-5s being admitted to hospital.

More young children are getting injured in the Bay of Plenty, ACC figures show.

Data shows 7450 injury claims were made for children under-5 in the Bay of Plenty between January and November this year. That number compares with 7311 claims made for the same period in 2013.

In Tauranga, 3479 claims were made from January to November 2014, an increase of 40 on 2013.

In the Western Bay of Plenty, there were 485 this year to November and 459 claims for the same period last year.

Tauranga mother Michele Hall said accidents were a common occurrence for young children.

"I have a son who will be 3 in March and you can imagine the accidents he has," she said. "We have had a few ACC claims in with him.

"Head knocks are very common in younger children when they are learning to walk and running around. Each child is different though, you don't know what you are going to get."

Despite this, Ms Hall believed children were "too sheltered" because of strict safety regulations in child care centres and schools.

"When I think of my childhood compared with some of the risks children are and aren't allowed to take these days, it is certainly more of a sheltered thing. But I guess people just want to keep their kids safe, so it is kind of a balance.

"The trend is the more accidents children have, the more reviews that go into place and the more standards childcare centres get given. But if teachers work within the standards, children are still able to take a few risks and will learn other skills anyway."

Nationally, there were 106,322 ACC claims for children under-5 from January to November this year and 105,842 for the same period in 2013.

The most common cause of injuries this year was loss of balance, with more than 40,000 claims, ACC said. Collisions were the second most common injury at more than 10,000 claims.

Plunket child safety adviser Sue Campbell said more could be done to prevent injuries.

"A lot of these accidents, or a majority of them, are preventable and by that we mean that if the adult is aware of the age and stage that the child has developed mentally, then they can make some changes to the home environment where the majority of these accidents happen," she said.

"We don't mean to stop children learning and developing, taking a bit of risk and having fun, but just to stop the serious injuries from occurring. We are talking about things like preventing falls, which is the key hospitalisation for children under-5.

"The range of injuries that we see are huge. Falls are the biggest one, followed by poisoning when children get access to household cleaners or medications. These things need to be kept out of reach and out of sight.

"Christmas can be a stressful time for a family. Adults may not be as careful with their kids as they normally are, due to so many other things happening, but it is important to always have an adult in charge of looking after the kids."