EllyDay's Anything Goes BLOG

Window Coverings and
Your Child's Safety

Window coverings, of all things, can be lethal. The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) says that since 1990 more than 200 children have died as a result of accidental strangulation from window-covering cords. Therefore, the CPSC and the Window Covering Safety Council (WCSC) have designated October as National Window Covering Safety Month.

"We urge parents to go through the home from top to bottom while on their knees to better understand potential hazards from a child's vantage point," says the WCSC's Joe Jankoski.

Jankoski offers these safety suggestions:

Avoid long draperies. Crawling kids can pull the fabric, bringing down the hardware and heavy, potentially suffocating draperies.

Select cordless window fashions. The Hunter Douglas LiteRise system eliminates operating cords; you raise and lower the window fashions by touching the bottom rail.

Use vertical blinds that work with a single wand, eliminating the need for cords.

Large glass doors and windows can shatter from the weight of a child's body, so use shatterproof glass in sliding-glass and French doors. Also, attach stickers at the child's eye level.