Hair straightners: one of the causes of children’s injuries

Breakfast cooked in hair straighteners to highlight burns risk.

Staffs at a hospital near Bristol have used hair straighteners to cook a breakfast in an attempt to highlight the risk of burns to children.

 Doctors at Frenchay Hospital have treated 110 children over the past five years for straightener burns, and warn surfaces can reach up to 230C and can also take up to 40 minutes to cool down.  They said as children's skin was 15 times thinner than adults’; a burn could be more harmful to minors. A spokesman warned the burns could lead to permanent scarring.

The most common part of a child's body to sustain a serious hair straightener burn is their hand, but children's heads, arms and feet have also been injured.

Parents are being advised to take care when using straighteners around children. "Young children can easily pick up or accidentally step on a hot pair of hair straighteners left on the floor and these burns can be quite deep," he said. "We have seen a number of these burns injuries... but there are many more children who suffer these types of burns that do not require hospital treatment.”The key safety messages we want to get across... is to switch hair straighteners off straight away after use, put them into a heat-resistant pouch, put them away straight away and to never leave them lying around."

BBC News
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