By Kristen Mees
SmartHealthToday
Halloween ghost stories and scary movies make for a lot of fun during October, but you want to make sure that your kids stay safe around the ghoulish holiday.
Dr. John LaCount, pediatrician at St. Elizabeth Healthcare Florence Pediatrics reminds us, “The younger the child more direct, consistent supervision is needed.”
Here are some additional Halloween safety tips from Dr. LaCount on costumes, candy and carving:
Costumes
1. Make sure costumes are bright and have reflective tape on them. If the weather is cold and you wear a coat over the customer add reflective tape to the coat.
2. Incorporate glow sticks to the costumer to increase your child’s visibility to cars and other trick-or-treaters.
3. Carry a flashlight so you can see the path or sidewalk to decease your chances of tripping and falling.
4. Don’t wear a mask, painting your child’s face allows them to see more clearly and hear what is happening around them.
5. Make sure any costume accessories are made of soft material. A hard plastic sward could cause injury to yourself or others.
Candy
1. Stay on sidewalks and paths as you go through the neighborhood to collect candy.
2. As you walk around the neighborhood collecting candy, use marked cross-walks to cross the street.
3. To minimize risk, keep candy collecting to your neighborhood or a closed party, or attend a local “trunk or treat.”
4. Inspect the candy for original wrappers and hazards. Make it a game—have them graph how many types of each candy they collected and how many days the candy can last if they only eat three a day.
Carving
1. Get the kits sold in stores that use hard plastic tools to carve, avoid household knives.
2. Paint on the pumpkins rather than carving, you also avoid the mess that come with carving.
3. Use LED lights to highlight pumpkins or put lights inside the pumpkin. Candles in a pumpkin can be dangerous especially as trick-or-treaters walk by with long costumes that could catch the flame.
Dr. LaCount offers one last tip for trick-or-treaters this Halloween. “Be careful around pets. They could be scared or spooked by costumers or the unusual activity. If you own a pet, keep it safe and sound indoors.”
SmartHealthToday is a service of St. Elizabeth Healthcare.