Shopping cart-related injuries to children are common and can result in severe injury or even death. Most injuries result from falls from carts or tip-overs, and injuries to the neck and head represent 75% of the cases.
Injuries associated with shopping carts are an important cause of pediatric morbidity, especially among children younger than 5 years. Of the 20,000 plus injuries reported from shopping carts in 2005, 85% were in children younger than 5 years. The head and neck are the most common sites of injury. Fractures are the most common injury resulting in hospital admission.
Injuries to children associated with shopping carts occur via several mechanisms: falling from carts, carts tipping over, and other mechanisms such as becoming entrapped in a cart, falling off a cart while riding on the outside, striking against a cart, and being run over by a cart. Falls from carts and cart tip-overs account for more than half of all injuries reported.
Health care professionals, child care advocates and parents should encourage businesses to adopt safety strategies to help prevent shopping cart related injuries to children. These may include supervised in-store child play areas; pick up areas or assistance bringing purchases to the vehicle to help parents avoid placing their children in carts; cart modifications to improve child restraint and cart stability; strollers or wagons for in-store use; and in-store and community wide consumer education and warnings.
Because of the current variability of shopping cart design and stability, parents should carefully consider the potential for injury before transporting their child in a shopping cart. If a parent chooses to transport his or her child in a shopping cart, then an effective age-and-size appropriate restraining device should be worn by the child at all times. Children should not be left unattended in a shopping cart, be allowed to stand up in a cart, be transported in the basket, or ride on the outside of a cart.
~Committee on Injury, Violence, and Poison Prevention, 2004-2005