Because in a split sec­ond, a nice cup of tea can scar a child for life. 

A tod­dler that reaches up to the kitchen bench and pulls a cup of hot tea over him – or her­self, or a cup acci­den­tally falls from the cof­fee table dur­ing a busy visit of friends and fam­ily .… this is all that it takes to cause an unnec­es­sary injury that can have con­se­quences for life.

Quick Facts about Scalds from Hot Bev­er­ages

• The skin of small chil­dren is so thin, that water at a tem­per­a­ture of 60°C (140°F) will cause a 3 ^rd degree burn within three seconds.
• You have to imag­ine that one cup of hot liq­uid spilled over a baby or a tod­dler is the equiv­a­lent of a bucket of hot water being spilled over an adult.
• Even after stand­ing to cool off for as long as 5 — 10 min­utes, tea may still be hot enough to cause a seri­ous burn.
• The biggest risk group is tod­dlers between 1 and 2 years of age.
• 3^rd degreee scald­ing burns may require treat­ment by skin grafts and a ten — to four­teen day stay in hos­pi­tal.

Scald­ing burn statistics

• UK: over 15,000 chil­dren are badly scalded from hot bev­er­ages every year. Over 1,100 of these chil­dren require major treatment.
• USA: 100,000 chil­dren scalded by hot drinks and hot food every year. Over 24,000 chil­dren are treated every year in emer­gency rooms for scalds from spilled beverages.
• Aus­tralia: an aver­age of almost 2,500 chil­dren aged 1 — 4 are affected by scalds every year; and 63% of these had been burned by hot liquid
• Canada: 325 chil­dren are admit­ted each year to hos­pi­tal with scald burns.
• Nether­lands:  10,000 acci­dents with chil­dren suf­fer­ing scald­ing burns from hot tea and cof­fee. Out of these, over 500 require major treatment

The Do’s and Don’ts of How to Treat a Scald Burn

• Do
  • Flood the injured area imme­di­ately with cool water for 10 to 15 minutes
  • Remove cloth­ing from the injured area once the burn has cooled
  • Loosely cover with non-fluffy mate­r­ial (e.g. loosely wrapped cling film)
  • Flood again with cold water if the scald starts to hurt again.
  • See the doc­tor if the scald is larger than a poststamp

• Don’t
  • Remove cloth­ing if the mate­r­ial is stick­ing to the skin
  • Touch the injured area or burst any blis­ters – this can cause infection
  • Put any creams, oint­ments, grease, anti­sep­tic spray or plas­ters on the injury

Resources and fur­ther reading

Kitchen Scalds and Ther­mal Burns in Chil­dren Five Years and Younger, by Dorothy A. Drago, MA, MPH (pub­lished in Pedi­atrics, Vol Vol. 115 No. 1 Jan­u­ary 2005)
Hot Water Burns Like Fire: short infor­ma­tion on an exten­sive Scalds Pre­ven­tion Cam­paign, Aus­tralia. A full report from the project also avail­able.
Scalds: A Burn­ing Issue. Defin­ing the Prob­lem, Pre­ven­tion, Diag­nose and Treat­ment. R H Dem­ling, Leslie De Santi, Jason Orgill, Burns Cen­ter, Brigham & Women’s hos­pi­tal, Boston, MA, USA
Scalds pre­ven­tion and infor­ma­tion home­page, Kid­safe Child Acci­dent Pre­ven­tion Foun­da­tion of Aus­tralia
Hot bev­er­age burns: an 11 year expe­ri­ence of the York­shire Regional Burns Cen­ter ‚ UK

A study of Burns in Chil­dren, by Ruiz et al, Depart­ment of Plas­tic Surgery and Burn Cen­ter, Hos­pi­tal La Fe, Valen­cia, Spain
Facts and fig­ures from Sala­man­ders — Young Burns Sur­vivors UK
Injury report from Cana­dian hos­pi­tals on scalds asso­ci­ated with hot bev­er­ages
Scald burns sec­tion on the home­page of the Burn Foun­da­tion
Hot bev­er­ages focus of research, Waikato Uni­ver­sity, New Zealand