About this time last year, I warned you about the many accidents your kids can face if they're not careful, and you're too distracted to keep them out of harm's way. A study featured in this month's Pediatrics (free text link below) describes how kids are dying while sitting in parked cars on days as cool as 70 degrees Fahrenheit!
According to one researcher, the outdoor temperature is the primary factor and the wrong one most parents and caregivers use to judge whether they should their children can stay in a parked car when it's warmer. Fact is, the availability of sunshine -- that wonderful, natural source of vitamin D -- is the real issue here.
Scientists measured the interior temperature of a parked car on sunny days ranging from 72-96 degrees Fahrenheit. The frightening results speak for themselves:
- A car's interior may heat up as much as 40 degrees within an hour, regardless of outdoor temperatures.
- Most of the increase in temperatures experienced in a parked car (80 percent) occurs in the first half-hour it sits.
- Running a car's air conditioner before parking slightly delays the temperature spike by some five minutes.
- Opening windows slightly did little good in lowering car temperatures.
Considering kids are much more susceptable to heat-related illness than adults, I urge you to take special care of your children, especially as the temperatures rise by limiting their sun exposure, dressing them in light-weight clothes and giving them plenty of fresh water to drink.
Pediatrics, Vol. 116, No. 1 July 2005: 109-112 Free Full Text Article
Yahoo News July 5, 2005