by Claudia Boyd-Barrett posted in Parenting

Using a cotton swab to clean your child?s ears could result in injury and even a trip to the emergency department.
A data analysis by researchers at Nationwide Children?s Hospital found more than 30 children a day end up in hospital emergency rooms after suffering an ear injury related to using a cotton swab. Most of the children who suffered injuries were under 3 years old. The researchers looked at two decades of records from the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System. Overall, more than 260,000 children went to emergency departments for a cotton-swab related ear injury between 1990 and 2010. The number of injuries peaked in 2001, but remained high at almost 13,000 in 2010.
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