How to Prevent and Treat Burns from Everyday Household Items

Though you may not realize it, there are a handful of everyday items in the home that can cause burns, from superficial burns to severe burns. PM Pediatrics breaks down what you can do in your home to prevent those burns, how to treat them initially, and when you need to see the doctor to receive further care for burns.

People do a lot of crazy stuff to try to treat their burns, from covering them with toothpaste to cracking an egg over top of them (not making this up). Burns are a thermal injury to the skin and are fairly common; approximately 300 children in the U.S. ages newborn to 19 years are seen daily in emergency departments with this type of injury, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Take that number and imagine how many are managed at home without medical intervention or being seen by a primary care pediatrician or in urgent care settings; that’s a lot of burns in one day.
    

Common Household Items That Cause Burns

If you take a quick look around your house, it’s pretty easy to see the many potential sources of burns: the oven, teapot, and hairstyling tools to name a few. While curious younger children are easy burn victims, accidents happen at any age, so it’s reasonable to take a quick walk-through of your house to see where the next burn source might be located and take some simple actions to try to reduce the chance of injury. A few key areas to pay attention to are:

• The stovetop: Pot and pan handles facing outward in an easy-to-reach position are asking toddlers to grab them. Same goes for pots and pans on the front burner. Cook on the back burner with the handles pointed toward the side or back of the stovetop.
• Hairstyling tools: Hair straighteners and curlers are some of the most common culprits for causing burns in the home. Even when they are on the countertops and out of reach of small children, the cord hangs low and is easy to pull. Don’t just turn the appliance off when you are finished using it; unplug it and place it and the cord out of reach.
• Fireplaces and fire-tending tools: If your home has a fireplace that is used a lot in the winter, the fire-tending tools get hot. Kids like to touch them since they are such a cool shape (especially the poker), so put them behind the screen. I also know of some children who have fallen through the screen and into the fireplace, so be aware of that as well.
• Matches, lighters and candles: Keep these away from kids, not stored in one of your junk drawers in the kitchen. (I’m side-eyeing myself here.
           

Types of Burns

Even the most careful, well-intended of us accidentally get burned every now and then (when the potholder slips out of position as we pull out a hot pan from the oven), so let’s talk a little bit about burns themselves.

Most people are familiar with the first, second and third degree classification of burns, but the nomenclature has been updated. In the interest of making you sound like you are part of the regional level 1 trauma or burn team, let’s use the most recent terminology:

• Superficial burns (the old first-degree): These look red and are painful and affect the top layer of skin.
• Partial-thickness burns (the old second-degree): This is a deeper burn. The skin is red and painful but it blisters as well.
• Full-thickness burns (the old third-degree): Deeper layers of the skin are involved. This burn often appears gray and is painless because the nerve fibers have been damaged.
      

How to Treat Burns

My overarching recommendation to everyone is to get burns seen by a medical professional right away if there’s ever a doubt about their extent or depth. Surprisingly, some burns can be more serious than people think. The kinds of burns that absolutely need immediate evaluation are: