Transcription:
Creeping It Real: Halloween Safety Tips from a Pediatric ER Doctor

Cheryl Martin (Host): Celebrating Halloween is always lots of fun with kids wearing costumes and collecting candy while trick or treating. Coming up next, tips on how to keep the holiday safe without any horror stories. This is my Maimo Med Talk. I'm Cheryl Martin. And with me from Maimonides is Dr. Alexander Arroyo, Director of Pediatric Emergency Medicine. Welcome, doctor. So glad you're on.

Dr Alexander Arroyo: Hi, Cheryl. Great to talk to you again.

Cheryl Martin (Host): So, what are some tips for keeping this Halloween safe?

Dr Alexander Arroyo: So, Halloween is very near and dear to me. It's my favorite holiday of the year. And the last thing we want to see in the emergency department is kids coming in with injuries related to Halloween. So, there's a few things that parents could do to actually keep them a lot safer during this holiday.

The big thing for us, I think, number one would be street safety. And it kind of sounds very basic. I live in New York City, there's very busy streets and we see a lot of injuries from car accidents. And actually, Halloween, you are two times as likely to be hit or killed by a car on Halloween. So for me, that's super important because I want to keep kids out of the ER for that. So there's a few things that parents could do to actually ensure that their kids are going to be safe during this holiday. The number one thing they could do is watch their kids. So, I know it sounds kind of cliché, but if you're walking around with your cell phone staring down, your child may divert and walk into the street by accident. They may see one of their friends across the street. They may see that there's a group of people across the street. And the problem with Halloween is that you kind of get lulled into this false sense of security that the streets are littered with children. And kids kind of can take it like, "Oh, this may be a block party. This may be something that I don't have to worry about cars. I see other people crossing," and they may run into the street. So, that's the thing that we probably see the most, is kids getting hit by cars.

Cheryl Martin (Host): What are some other things parents can do to prevent an ER visit?

Dr Alexander Arroyo: So, there's also a few things to do. The way to identify your child is going to be difficult because you'll be sitting in the streets with many, many kids who are wearing similar costumes, brightly colored costumes, darkly colored costumes. So if your child has a very dark colored costume, one thing you can do is either attach a blinking bicycle light to their back, so it doesn't interfere with the front of their costume. You could also put some reflective tape on the back of their costume or on the sides of their costume. So if they do actually step into the street, they're a little bit more visible to the cars that are passing. Another thing you could do is ensure that you're crossing the street at the corners where the lights are, where the stop signs are. You know, we will get a little complacent and maybe cross in between cars, which is a definite no-no. You want to be at the corners, cross across the corners, and not in the middle of the streets.

Cheryl Martin (Host): Now, pumpkins are so big during this time. Is there anything that parents need to look out for? You know, carving pumpkins during this time?

Dr Alexander Arroyo: Sure. The main thing about pumpkins, we all use them, we all decorate our house with them. They're a fun thing to do and a tradition that we've been done for many, many years. You really don't want small children to handle those knives. Those knives are very difficult to deal with, especially the pumpkin carving knives. They can break very easily and they're pretty sharp.

The other thing as well is that if you have any lights in the pumpkin, you want to avoid using any candles that would have a real burning flame. Glow sticks are a great alternative. You could use LED lights, you could use tea lights that turn off and on. It's a difficult thing to leave that candle inside there because you may fall asleep. It may be in the house, it may start a fire. We've seen that before. Fires starting from pumpkins that have candles that are lit or even outside. We're in the middle of fall, so you may put some leaves on fire that kind of come through, which may be a big problem in front of your house and/or for you or your neighbor.

Cheryl Martin (Host): Now, should parents sort through their child's candy stash first?

Dr Alexander Arroyo: Yeah. Well, we have to avoid the primal instinct to open up all the candy the second we get it. So, a lot of times, you know, you'll be walking through the streets, you'll be picking up some candy from neighbors, and somebody wants to eat something that's been dropped in their treat bag. Let's avoid eating anything until we get home, because there's a few reasons. One, if anything is open or damaged packaging, you want to just throw those out immediately. You don't want your kids eating those because you don't know how long they've been sitting around open, and then they can make you sick from that.

The other thing too is that, oftentimes, people will buy candy on sale at Halloween and keep it for the next year, you know, after Halloween's over, and then give that out from there. So when you open the candy, you see that the milk chocolate's all white, it's all moldy, it's all nasty. You definitely don't wanna give that to your kids. So seeing what they have prior to them actually getting it is an important thing. So the most important thing you can do with candy is take it home, dump it all out, and you want to sift through everything. Anything that is open should go in the garbage. Anything that is expired should go into the garbage. Anything that's been given to you that is like a baked good or a fruit by someone you don't actively know well should also probably be thrown out as well too. You know, some people have good intentions, they want bake cookies, make a little more healthier treats. But if you don't know that person, I would probably just get rid of it.

Cheryl Martin (Host): What's the best way for parents to ensure that their kids don't eat too much candy?

Dr Alexander Arroyo: So another great question. To dovetail on the last question we talked about, also I would avoid children sharing their candy with other kids because you just really don't know what allergies kids have. You know, a lot of these chocolates have peanuts in them and many, many kids have peanut allergies. So if you pass someone a candy that they may not be able to eat, you may be inadvertently sending somebody else to the emergency department that night, which we want to avoid as well.

As far as rationing candy goes, kids have this visceral response where they're like, "Oh my goodness, I got so much candy. I want to eat it all tonight," which is what you definitely want to avoid to do. I know my daughter, she's very sneaky and she'll stick things in her pocket, so I won't see it for later. And she'll kind of sneak them out and shove chocolate in her face and then wind up getting sick afterwards.

So the best thing to do, again, is one you're sorting through the candy to ensure that you don't have anything expired or open, is to take a large chunk of that and put it into basket. We have what's called the Halloween basket at home that last throughout the whole year. We basically fill it up on all the candy holidays like Easter or Valentine's Day, and it's a continual stash. If they go to a birthday party, well, everything goes into the Halloween basket. And then, the kids are able to, after dinner, pick one or two treats from the Halloween basket. Nothing that's crazy. You know, not a massive large chocolate bar. They're able to pick one or two treats and we explain to them, "Listen, you know, you don't want to eat everything in one shot because if you do, you're going to wind up getting sick and not feel well. And then, we'll wind up in the hospital from that with a belly ache and vomiting and whatnot. So, let's keep the candy in the basket, then we'll pick one or two treats from there." So the best thing you could do is to kind of ration it so you could potentially have it for a few months and not just that night.

Cheryl Martin (Host): Great idea. Now, what are your recommendations for attending Halloween parties?

Dr Alexander Arroyo: So, Halloween parties are a fun thing to do. In the age of Covid, we've seen a big decrease in the amount of Halloween parties that people have gone to. At this point, the mask mandates in New York State have been lifted when it comes to school, so kids are interacting with each other at school without mask at this point. So if you wanted attend a Halloween party, you know, you have to be as safe as you would normally be. So if you want to wear a mask, absolutely wear a mask. It's one of those things that, if people feel more comfortable doing that, then they definitely could.

But I think the biggest safety concern that I see a lot in Halloween parties is related to kind of the adults. So the adults will join the Halloween party with the children because they want to have some fun as well. And you may leave a brightly colored drink that may be alcoholic standing around. And if one of the kids gets into that during the party, thinking it's maybe not an alcoholic drink, maybe it's a juice, and they'll be drinking those. We've seen kids come in who have been intoxicated because of drinks that have been left around during a party. So, the biggest step I can get for a Halloween party is once you receive your drink, make sure you drink it or make sure you dispose of it properly and not leave it sitting around.

Cheryl Martin (Host): Great advice, doctor. Any other tips for those planning to trick or treat or attend a Halloween party?

Dr Alexander Arroyo: So one of the other big things for safety is costume safety. So we talked a little bit briefly about ensuring that your child's darkly colored costume is a little more lit up with either a bicycle light or some reflective tape on the back of it. The other problems are long capes or dresses. You know, we buy a lot of these on Amazon or other websites, and they may not be the best fitting costumes possible. So if they have very long dresses or capes, trying to tuck them in or hem them or pinning them before they go outside is an important thing because what invariably happens, especially in New York City, you're going up and down steps and we've seen kids fall down the steps, fall up the steps, and they could hit their heads, they could break an arm, they could potentially do some damage by having a costume that's really ill-fitting, so we want to avoid that.

The other. Caveat to that is the mask that they wear. So we have a lot of funny or scary-looking mask that people wear in Halloween. And invariably, the eye holes and the breathing holes can be very, very small or not in the right position for the kid to actually see out of. So before you go out trick or treating, you want to ensure that when you put your child's mask on, they're able to see out of the eye holes and they're able to breathe properly out of the nose holes. You may have to increase the eye holes, cut them open a little bit more, increase the nose holes so they could actually breathe a little bit more.

Remember, those plastic rubber masks really aren't COVID-friendly. But then, you also have to kind of worry about if they have a mask underneath there on top of the rubber mask. I would definitely not recommend that because it can get very, very hard to breathe just in the rubber mask in general. And then, when you add a surgical mask on top of that, it maybe also more difficult too. So you have to kind of be in the happy medium between all of that. So look for the eye holes, look for the nose holes.

And also, you want to get a costume that's flame-retardant. So just in case anything happens, it's not going to light up a fire immediately, similar to the pajamas that parents buy to ensure that we're doing the most for kids when it comes to safety.

And also the big thing as well is dress for the weather. October is a very interesting month in New York City. It could be either summertime or it could be wintertime, one or the other. Everybody wants to show off their costume, especially if they made a lot of adjustments and/or spent a lot of time actually making the costume. But always wear a jacket if it's cold, a hat if it's very, very cold to ensure that you're keeping your kids nice and warm during Halloween.

Cheryl Martin (Host): These are all such great tips, doctor, to keep Halloween happy and healthy for parents and children. Thank you so much. We appreciate your time.

Dr Alexander Arroyo: Anytime. I just want to wish everybody a safe and healthy Halloween. And please ration that candy. We don't want to see you in the ER.

Cheryl Martin (Host): Dr. Alexander Arroyo, thank you so much. For more information, visit maimo.org. That's M-A-I-M-O.org. If you found this information helpful, please share it on your social media and thanks for listening to this edition of Maimo Med Talk.