A recent news article reported a study in the Journal of Pediatric Orthopaedics showing that when parents go down the slide with their children on their lap, the children risk breaking a leg.

Sarasota Orthopaedic surgeon Dr. David Sugar sees this frequently, “Their foot gets caught against the side of the slide, their leg gets twisted, and now with the momentum of the heavier parent behind them there is even more force, enough to break the bone.” A mother interviewed for the article had this experience with her two- year- old daughter who suffered a broken tibia, as a result.

Sugar recommends that children go down a playground slide by themselves, feet first with legs straight, not bent.  It is easy for the rubber of a child’s shoe to get caught on the slide…they keep going, the foot is stuck and they twist. We have actually had this happen with our grandchild but fortunately she was not hurt.

Playgrounds are wonderful places for children to run and explore. As a grandparent reading this article has raised my level of awareness of the risks of injury on slides.