With parents working during the day, often it is grandparents that look after children until they enter kindergarten. Even with close monitoring, accidents do occur and, often the elderly are not able to respond to accidents such as falling, drowning, choking, suffocation or asphyxiation among their grandchildren. “In an accident with their grandchildren, grandparents should not act without thinking and on impulse, as this an cause other accidents or increase the severity of injuries, “Helena Botte, Secretary General of APSI, told the Correio da Manha newspaper.

Among the most frequent accidents, not only involving children, are the falls that cause more victims, many of them who died as a result.

The Central Administration Data Health System (ACSS) indicate that in 2006-2010, there were 32 925 accidents reported among children, of whom 17,991 were from falls, 11,014 from traffic accidents and 1830 by poisoning.  Other cases were suffocation or strangulation concerning 1,230 children, burns 670, and there were 190 drownings.

The largest number of deaths occurred in traffic accidents. During that period there were 427 deaths from 0 to 19, and 198 deaths were due to other accidents: drowning (75 deaths), other causes (69), suffocation (28) and falls (26) – totaling 625 deaths.

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