Healthwatch: Developing Child Friendly spray bottle
By: Erin Davisson
Updated: October 1, 2012
Columbus, Ohio (WFRV)--Researchers at The Research Institue at Nationwide Children's Hospital, in partnership with The Ohio State University, have developed a prototype for child-resistant spray bottles for household cleaning products. If produced, the prototype would provide an alternative to current, more harmful child-resistant spray bottles while still meeting U.S. Consumer Product Safety commission standards for child resistance.
A Nationwide Children's study* in 2010 revealed that spray bottles were the most common source of exposure to injury in an estimated 267,269 children 5 years of age or younger treated in U.S. emergency departments for household cleaning product-related injuries between 1990 and 2006. These spray bottles are the largest dispensing system type by volume in North America, commonly used for household cleaning and garden products.
The study, led by Lara McKenzie, PhD, principal investigator in the Center of Injury Research and Policy at Nationwide Children's, was the basis for the spray bottle prototype.
"Existing spray bottles for household cleaning-products cannot be designated as truly child-resistant," explained Dr. McKenzie, also a faculty member at The Ohio State University College of Medicine. "While many spray bottles contain a nozzle that controls the stream configuration or closes the spray bottle, these nozzles are not effective if the user does not turn the nozzle back to the 'closed' or 'off' position after each use. These nozzles are also relatively easy for young children to manipulate on their own."
In a pilot study including 25 families of young children, Nationwide Children's investigators found that 75 percent of the nozzles on the cleaning product spray bottles were not in the "closed" or "off" position and therefore posed a potential hazard to young children in the household.
