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# Preventing injuries by age, and safe sleep for infants

- Safe practice

Most child injuries are preventable: make the home safe for the child's age, supervise near water and roads, and put babies to sleep on their backs.

Updated Nov 13, 2026

## Key points

- Safe sleep: on the back for every sleep, on a firm flat surface, with no pillows, blankets, bumpers or soft toys.
- Room-share without bed-sharing, ideally for at least 6 months; no smoking around the baby; avoid overheating.
- Drowning: cover wells and water tanks with heavy lids, empty buckets and basins, never leave a small child alone near water.
- Burns and poisoning: keep matches, candles, hot pots, sharp tools, chemicals and medicines out of reach; choose child-resistant containers.
- Falls: barriers or rails where a small child could fall; road safety: child-appropriate restraints and helmets, never cross the road alone.
- Do not put butter, sugar or oil on burns.

## What it is

Road traffic injuries, drowning, burns, falls and poisoning are the leading injury causes of death in children. Injuries are not bad luck: young children explore and taste everything, so adults must control the risk. The nurse uses every contact, from the newborn visit to the school-age check, to ask about the home and to give advice suited to the child's age and abilities. For infants, safe sleep is part of the same conversation.

## What it requires

- Ask about the home in every visit: water storage, stairs and windows, kitchen, where medicines and chemicals are kept, transport.
- Match the advice to development: the crawling infant, the walking toddler and the school child face different risks.
- Name concrete actions, not general warnings.

## Components

- A safe home: hazards out of reach, protections where the child could fall.
- Care outside the home: water, roads, animals and dense vegetation.
- Safe sleep for the infant.
- Knowing what to do and where to go if an injury happens.

## How it is applied (and why)

- Ask the carer to describe the home and a normal day — risks are found in routines, not in lists.
- Relate risks to the child's next skill (rolling, crawling, walking, climbing) — injuries happen when abilities outpace supervision.
- For infants, review where and how the baby sleeps — back sleeping on a firm, empty surface lowers the risk of sudden infant death.
- Ask how water is stored and agree on lids and supervision — small children can drown in very little water.
- Agree where medicines, cleaning products and pesticides will be stored, high and locked — children taste what they find.
- Review the kitchen: hot pots, lit candles and matches out of reach — burns are among the leading injury deaths in children.
- Ask how the child travels and stress restraints, helmets and never crossing alone — road traffic is the leading injury killer.
- Teach that after an injury the child goes to the health service, and to avoid home remedies that may cause harm — wrong first aid can worsen injuries.

## In nursing practice

- Record the advice given and any risk found, and check it at the next visit.
- Combine injury advice with other AIEPI key practices: vaccination, feeding, hand washing, signs of danger.
- An injury that does not fit the story or the child's development calls for assessment of possible maltreatment.
- Supervised community childcare for pre-school children and basic swimming and water-safety lessons for school-age children also reduce drowning.

## Common mistakes

- Saying 'watch your child' without a concrete action.
- Accepting pillows, blankets, bumpers or inclined surfaces in the baby's sleep space.
- Forgetting water stored in buckets, tanks and wells.
- Treating injuries as bad luck instead of risks that adults can control.

## Test yourself

Think of the answer, then tap the question to see it.

## In what position and on what surface should a baby sleep?

On the back for every sleep, on a firm flat surface with no pillows, blankets, bumpers or soft toys.

## Which five causes lead child injury deaths worldwide?

Road traffic injuries, drowning, burns, falls and poisoning.

## What should the family not put on a burn?

Butter, sugar or oil.

## How can drowning be prevented at home in rural areas?

Cover wells and water tanks with heavy lids, empty buckets and basins, and never leave a small child alone near water.

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## Elsewhere in DurgiPedia

- [Sudden infant death syndrome: what is known](https://durgical.com/en/general-pathology/sudden-infant-death-syndrome-what-is-known/)
- [Sudden unexpected death in adults and infants](https://durgical.com/en/forensic-medicine/sudden-unexpected-death-in-adults-and-infants/)

## Connections

## Related 2

- [The child who swallowed something harmful: first steps, the toxicology line and prevention](https://durgical.com/en/nursing/the-child-who-swallowed-something-harmful-first-steps-the-toxicology-line-and-pr/)
- [The child with burns: extent by age, fluids and output, dressings and pain](https://durgical.com/en/nursing/the-child-with-burns-extent-by-age-fluids-and-output-dressings-and-pain/)

## Related conditions 3

- [Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS)](https://durgical.com/en/conditions/sudden-infant-death-syndrome/)
- [Drowning](https://durgical.com/en/conditions/drowning/)
- [Burns (thermal, chemical, electrical; inhalation injury)](https://durgical.com/en/conditions/burns/)

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Educational content for students; it does not replace your institution's protocols, supervised clinical training or a prescriber's order. Dose-calculation examples use made-up numbers: they are educational, not a clinical order.

Sources: [Componente comunitario de la estrategia AIEPI: guía para referentes y coordinadores locales](https://www.minsalud.gov.co/sites/rid/Lists/BibliotecaDigital/RIDE/VS/PP/Guia_referentes.pdf) (Ministerio de la Protección Social de Colombia / Organización Panamericana de la Salud, 2010); [Helping babies sleep safely](https://www.cdc.gov/sudden-infant-death/sleep-safely/index.html) (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2024); [Drowning (fact sheet)](https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/drowning) (World Health Organization, 2026); [Preventable injuries kill 2000 children every day (World report on child injury prevention)](https://www.who.int/news/item/10-12-2008-preventable-injuries-kill-2000-children-every-day) (World Health Organization / UNICEF, 2008).

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Source: https://durgical.com/en/nursing/preventing-injuries-by-age-and-safe-sleep-for-infants/
License: CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Cite as: DurgiPedia (durgical.com), https://durgical.com/en/nursing/preventing-injuries-by-age-and-safe-sleep-for-infants/