Parents who think it’s adorable to let their toddlers wobbly amble up and down stairs are putting their kids at risk of severe injury. A study shows that stairs sent children under age 5 to the emergency room 931,000 times between 1998 and 2008.

HealthDay News relays a study from the Center for Injury Research and Policy at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, which found that three percent of stair-related injuries sent kids to the hospital, with most of the injuries affecting the neck and head.

Carrying children up and down stairs doesn’t seem to be the way to protect them, because the study said that carried children who were injured were three times more likely than kids injured when walking by themselves to need hospitalization. A study co-author theorizes that the carried children were hurt because their parents were trying to multitask as they lugged their tots around.

The lesson here for parents: Watch your kids, not your cell phones, when helping them use stairs.

Stair-related injuries a threat to preschoolers [HealthDay News via WFMJ]

Stair-Related Injuries to Young Children Treated in US Emergency Departments, 1999-2008 [Pediatrics]

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