CONTEST #1: What's Wrong With This Picture???

Most of the television shows produced today have a fairly decent budget...especially the "hits" where a large fan base brings in high advertising revenue. To keep the fans coming back, dramas in particular pay close attention to making their show as "realistic" as possible, typically hiring consultants to make sure that what they are showing accurately reflects real life experiences.

For the past decade ER and Grey's Anatomy have been two of the most popular US hospital dramas. Medical consultants are a given at this level. Take a look at the following clips from both of these shows...both show an ambulance arriving at the ER with a young child.

Two questions: What's right with these pictures? ...and more important what's wrong?

(scenes © ER and Grey's Anatomy, all rights reserved. A special thanks to Young Estate Studios for creating these clips and making this possible)

What's right?

• You are seeing a totally accurate picture of what happens today. Clearly someone was holding the child during transport - whether the parent strapped to a stretcher or the EMT or paramedic who is getting off the ambulance holding the child. Regardless, they did not unstrap the child and pick them up to hop out of the ambulance. The consultant got it right.

What's wrong?

• The consultant got it right - someone was holding that child on the ambulance while transporting them to the hospital. Noone has strapped that child in and currently there's no law - at least in the US as well as in a number of other countries - requiring them to do so. It is not the medic's fault, for very little is available in terms of equipment to safely secure young children on ambulances. But what if that child needed CPR? Or even more important, what happens to that child if the unimaginable were to happen and that ambulance were to be hit?

Maybe they're safer in an ambulance than a car? If we consider that we are highly likely to be going above the speed limit around curves and passing through intersections against the flow of traffic, I'm not sure I believe that. Also I can say without a doubt there is at least 1 child I know of that will never attend public school because we did not keep her secure in the back of an ambulance. So clearly what we're doing is not working, but until we're ready to say "this is unacceptable" nothing will change.

So are we ready??? Is 1 child's life enough for us to do something???

If you agree with me that the answer is yes...then let's do something about it... Together we can get the message out about keeping kids safe on ambulances... Oh and hey, for the people working the hardest talking to all their followers, there just might be a little something coming your way!

***HERE'S HOW IT WORKS***

The prize: a little something cool - for you truly cool people to thank you for helping out:

• To one winner - a summer of weekly Frappuccinos (or at least $50 worth on a loaded Starbucks card)
• To two second place winners - a month of Frappuccinos (or $25 worth on a Starbucks card)

MANDATORY for entry:

1. You must leave a comment with your twitter URL and a valid email address and tweet this: Starbucks Giveaway! RT @PediatricSafety We need to transport kids safely on ambulances-things have got to change http://ow.ly/auXc

And for EXTRA entries: (please leave a comment for each)

1. Follow me on twitter @pediatricsafety
2. Follow KiddiesCorner on twitter @KiddiesCorner
3. Tweet the following: Starbucks Giveaway! RT @PediatricSafety We need to transport kids safely on ambulances-things have got to change http://ow.ly/auXc (You may tweet daily - 1 entry each)
4. Follow my blog http://pedsafe.blogspot.com/ (1 entry) - please make sure to verify your email
5. Follow KiddiesCorner Deals Blog http://kiddiescornerdeals.blogspot.com/ (1entry)
6. Click on the “Share This” at the bottom of this post & submit this to your favorite social network (1 entry)
7. Blog about this giveaway and link to this post http://ow.ly/auXc (3 entries)

Contest Rules -

Giveaway is open to USA and Canada readers only. Giveaway starts Friday June 19, 2009 and ends at noon EST Friday July 3, 2009. Please leave email address or make sure it's on your profile or you won't win. You will have 48 hours to email me if you win. Winner chosen using random.org. Good Luck to all entrants!

Finally - for a special prize...I needed a mom who knew how to run contests to help me run this one... so to thank the amazing mom who is helping make this possible, I'd like to send a little personal frappuccino heaven as well - a $20 Starbucks gift card and a huge thank you!

Welcome to our first contest of the summer - we hope to run many more ...because here at Pediatric Safety we firmly believe that ONE OUCH IS TOO MANY!!

****CONGRATULATIONS TO OUR WINNERS****

1ST PRIZE: Stefanie Hartman

2ND PRIZES: Eve and JanetFaye

I will be emailing you shortly with the details.

Enjoy your Starbucks...and Thanks for helping us spread the word about keeping kids safe on ambulances!! Also special thanks to Nichol at Kiddiescornerdeals.blogspot.com for help running this contest!!

Do we shut off the tv until they reach 2?

We don't think anything of it. Television is such a normal part of our lives that many of us don't think twice about leaving it on in the background. And truth be told, it can be incredibly useful - whether it's providing entertainment for the little one and giving us a few minutes of much needed break time or the only "other" adult voice heard for most of the day - it can feel like a lifesaver.

Unfortunately, acording to Dimitri Christakis, director of the Center for Child Health, Behavior and Development at Seattle Children's Research Institute and professor of pediatrics at the University of Washington School of Medicine, television exposure during the early years can also be associated with language delays and attention problems. So much so that the American Academy of Pediatrics is discouraging television watching before the age of two.

(Even background TV may delay infants' speech: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31051013/ )

According to Christakis' study of 329 2-month to 4-year-old children and their parents, each hour of television exposure was linked to a decrease of 770 words the child heard from an adult. There was also a decrease in child vocalizations and child-adult interactions. Of course the reality is that some of these results were directly related to children being left in front of a TV, however others reflected adults who while present were distracted by the television and not necessarily interacting with their child. And "hearing adults speak and being spoken to are critical exposures that play a role in infants development in language" according to Christakis.

On the surface, having read this article I would be very hesitant to put my child down in front of a tv...after all, there's no way I'm going to be the reason my baby has speech delays or attention problems. The first sentence was clear: "even infants zone out in front of the television, and it turns out this translates into less time interacting with parents and possible lags in language development..." But on another read...and a second and a third, I hesitate and then I slowly rethink my position.

The facts when I sit down and take a good look at them are that the study clearly states it did not measure whether or not anyone - parent or child - was actively watching the tv or if it was just in the background. And the number one stated result was that the child heard 770 words less from an adult for each hour the TV was on but it never stated how many words the adult actually spoke during that time. It points out that interaction is key for babies brain but then proceeds to recommend that children under age 2 be discouraged from watching television. Maybe it's me but my gut says they're missing the point.

The interaction as well as the distraction - they both start and end with us. It's us, not the children that can't handle the tv being on in the background. Maybe we're the ones who need to be reminded to walk away...because if the study told us anything, it's that it can be tough for us to tune it out...and the one thing we never ever want to do is tune them out.

Message received.