Consumers Encouraged to Buy Safe
Children Toys this Holiday Season

Every year children under the age of five
die or are hospitalized due to toy related incidents.

The holiday season is the most popular time of the year for baby gifts, but according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), in 2004 alone, there were at least 16 toy-related deaths and an estimated 210,300 toy-related injuries treated in the United States emergency rooms. This year several organizations that focus on children safety are encouraging consumers to purchase safe toys.

While children should have toys that are fun and entertaining, they should also be safe when using these toys, and more and more toys are getting smaller pieces, pointier edges or defective parts.

In the last year the CPSC recalled at least 18 toys that pose a choking hazard, which represents over 631,000 defective units marked and sold. Other toys the CPSC has recalled this last year have been due to risks of strangulation, impact injuries, burns, punctures and more.

When deciding what toys to buy for children, consumers should not only choose toys their children will have fun with, but also evaluate the toy's safety. When creating the Fun Pad, ABC Fun Pads' founder and CEO, Jody Bridge, wanted children to experience both safety and fun. Jody and her husband, Steve Bridge, wanted a product that would assist in childproofing, but would also entertain children.

"We created a product that fits over most coffee tables and creates a cushion around the edges, protecting from bumps and bruises," Jody said. "But we also wanted to make the product fun for children, so we used a fabric that has a fun city scene where children can play with their cars or dolls and also color with washable markers."

Because many people are in such a rush to get all of their holiday shopping done for Christmas, they often forget to pay attention to the details, including safety, of the products they are buying.

"We created a Web site that would quickly let people know all of the details about the ABC Fun Pads, but that would also help make the shopping process fun and easy," Jody said. "You can buy the Fun Pad right on the Web site and we will gift wrap it and ship it right to you."

Child products that are both safe and fun are becoming more and more popular. Once consumers begin to do more research and search for these products, emergency room visits and toy recalls will more than likely decrease.

For more information about ABC Fun Pads and to see the new Web site visit www.abcfunpads.com.