Give a helmet with that tricycle, CDC urges

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - A gift of a tricycle, bicycle or other pedal cycle to a youngster this holiday season is not complete without a well-fitting helmet to go along with it, officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention remind the public in the latest issue of the agency's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

In Wisconsin during 2002-2004, records show that residents younger than 6 years of age made a total of 2,046 trips to emergency rooms for injuries sustained while riding a bike, trike, or other pedal cycle. In nearly two-thirds of these injuries (63.8 percent), the injury involved the head or neck and in 3.6 percent the diagnosis was traumatic brain injury.

The Wisconsin figures support prior studies that have indicated that head injuries are the predominant category of injury in young cyclists.

The emergency department costs associated with head and neck pedal cycle injuries among under-6-year-olds totaled more than $654,000.

Boys were more likely to be seen in the ED for a pedal cycle injury than were girls. Not surprisingly, these injuries were more likely to occur in spring and summer.

"Measures to improve pedal-cycle safety and increase helmet use often target school-age children rather than younger children, even though preschool-age children wearing helmets have fewer injuries and are more likely to wear helmets in the future compared with children who do not wear helmets," write Randall Glysch of the Wisconsin Division of Public Health in Madison and co-authors.

The data from Wisconsin "underscore the need for interventions designed to reduce head and neck injuries in the youngest users of pedal cycles," they conclude.

SOURCE: Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, December 22, 2006.