Safety and Seizures

If your child has seizures, most of the safety tips for adults are just as useful for keeping your child safe from harm.

In addition, parents of children with seizures learn to childproof their homes by doing the same things other parents do, such as placing gates in front of stairs and other dangerous places, locking up household chemicals and cleaning supplies, and covering electrical outlets.

A greater risk to a child's well being may be overprotection if parents try to foresee every risk and head off every injury. It is part of a child's normal development to explore the environment and try new things.

As a parent, you will want to strike a balance between safety and overprotection Some of the following safety tips may help, depending on how old your child is, what type of seizures he or she has, and how often they happen.

• A monitor in the child's bedroom may alert you to the sound of a typical seizure.
  
  
• Avoid top bunks. A lower bunk, a regular bed, a futon or even a mattress on the floor is a safer place to sleep for a child with seizures.
  
  
• A well-fitting helmet with a face guard may protect against head and facial injuries from severe drop seizures.
  
  
• Choking is a risk for any child, especially if the child has frequent seizures and other disabilities. Children sometimes retain food in their mouths and it's a good idea to check if this is a problem.
  
  
• Put a list of first aid steps on the refrigerator or some other place where it's easy to find Write down the phone number where you or a relative can be reached include the doctor's number and the one for the emergency squad on the same sheet.
  
  
• If your child is going to sleep at a friend's or relative's house overnight, make sure a copy of the list goes with him or her and that an adult in the house knows what to expect and what to do if a seizure happens.
  
  
• If your child has had an episode of status epilepticus (seizures that won't stop, or a series of seizures), check with the doctor on what to do if he or she has another one. Make sure everyone in the family knows what to do.

 

Our son had seizures at night. We were terrified he would have one when we slept and we wouldn't be able to make sure he came out of it all right. Our solution was to put a baby monitor in his room (we called it our seizure monitor since he didn't want to be called a baby). It picked up the shaking sound his bed made during a seizure and woke one of us up. Knowing it was there made us all feel better, including him.