Prevent burns to kids

More than half (about 52 per cent) of burns cases seen at the National Reconstructive Plastic Surgery and Burns Centre at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital involve children.

The Director of the centre, Dr Opoku Ware Ampomah, has, therefore, advised children to be interested in their own safety and prevent burns-related injury at home.

 In an interview in Accra, Dr Ampomah said when a child got a bad burn, it scarred that child for the rest of his or her life and that was why everything should be done to prevent it.

“We may do all the plastic surgery in the world but it will not restore you to your original state,” he explained.

He said a burn-related injury was one of the conditions where the consequences followed the affected person throughout his or her life.

Dr Ampomah explained that because children developed quickly, if the skin got badly burnt, that part of the skin would not stretch easily to accommodate the child’s growth.

He said certain burn injuries could lead to the child being unable to move some joints and would require further surgery to ease the tightness of those parts of the body.

For instance, he said, in some cases if a girl got  burns on her chest and later reached puberty, it would become difficult for her breasts to protrude and that would require surgery to correct.

“Burns to your face can be very disfiguring and usually result in people staring at you always.

This may reduce your confidence level and can affect you psychologically. Some burns can also develop into skin cancers much later in life,” he added.

Dr Ampomah said a burn-related injury might mar the relationship between a child and the parent because the child might blame the parent for being negligent and allowing that to happen to him or her.

Hot liquids
Dr Ampomah said hot liquid burns ranked as the number one cause of burns in children.
Also, the commonest places where burns occur in homes are the kitchen followed by the bathroom.

He said the kitchen was not a play area and if there was the need for children to be in the kitchen, they had to be supervised by an adult.

Dr Ampomah said since the rainy season had begun and most children would bathe with hot water, it was important to take some precautions to prevent accidents.

He said when parents prepare hot water for children to bathe, it was advisable to dilute the hot water to the desired temperature at the place it was prepared before carrying it to the bathroom.

In that case, he said, when an accident occurred during the transportation of the water to the bathroom, it would not cause a burn.

Dr Ampomah said parents should allow children to test the temperature of the diluted water because they (children) had thinner skin than adults and what might be hot for children might not be the case for adults.

Prevention better than cure
Dr Ampomah said parents had to be vigilant and keep the home safe because prevention was better than cure.

He said in some of the house types, such as a compound house, there was no clear demarcation of play and cooking areas making it easy for accidents to happen at home.

He said when cooking, parents should make sure the handle of the cooking pot was not jutting out so that a child would not pull on the handle or accidentally bump into it to cause injury.

Another area he said one needed to be careful of was the microwave because it heated up food unevenly leaving some parts very hot.

In a home where there is a crawling baby, Dr Ampomah said it was advisable not to use the table cloth because if there was hot food on a table, the child could easily pull the table cloth and the contents on the table would come tumbling down causing an accident.

He said another common form of burn injury was from gas explosions and parents should take the necessary precaution by keeping the gas cylinders outside the kitchen, prevent children from playing with the regulators and seek professional help when the cylinder was faulty.

Additionally, he said, parents should keep hazardous, flammable products away from children.
In times of power outages, it is important not to leave lighted candles unattended to or at insecure places that would make them fall easily and cause havoc.

Abuse
Not all cases of burns are accidents though because according to Dr Ampomah, occasionally burn-related injury reported at the centre had been as a result of abuse by caregivers.

“When we see any burns and the pattern of the burn does not match the story being told, then we suspect there may have been some abuse,” he said.

He, therefore, cautioned parents not to use any form of burn as a way of disciplining children and cause harm.

First aid
In case of burns, Dr Ampomah said the first thing to do was to quickly pour a lot of water (room temperature) on the affected part to cool the burns and then be covered with a clean cloth or towel and report to the hospital.

“What you do within the first two to five minutes of a burn has a big impact on the outcome of that burn,” he added.