Winter sports such as skiing and snowboarding are a great way to keep kids active in the winter, but they are also linked to injuries and for younger children those injuries are more likely to involve fractures to the head or face, according to research recently presented at the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) 2019 National Conference & Exhibition.
Researchers looked at a cross-sectional analysis of the 2009 and 2012 Kids’ Inpatient Database, examining 845 hospital admissions for snow sport injuries in children. They found that over half of hospitalised children required major surgical intervention, and children aged 5-10 were at significantly greater odds than those older than 18 to suffer a skull or facial fracture. From the age of 11 upwards, children were more likely to experience intra-abdominal injury.
“We were interested to find that the type of injuries children had varied according to their age, and we believe these findings can better inform educational and legislative efforts aimed at reducing injuries in children who participate in winter sports,” said Robert McLoughlin.
“These injuries can be very severe and should be a concern to any parent with a child involved in these sports. Almost a quarter – 23 per cent of children – suffered intercranial injuries, which we found were more common among young children.”
Of the young skiers who were admitted into hospitals
in this research, 75.8 per cent were male and 87.4 per cent white. The injuries
included: lower extremity fractures (28.7 per cent), intracranial injury (22.7
per cent), splenic injury (15.6 per cent), upper extremity fracture (15.5 per
cent), and skull fracture (9.1 per
cent).
Source: American Academy of Pediatrics
