Are You Unknowingly Endangering Your Children? Don’t Make This Holiday Mistake!

I hate to be a Debbie Downer. However, safety and health are always my top priorities when running my business. As a mom, I also feel that I owe to all the other parents out there to warn you of potential dangers. I LOVE taking adorable pictures – that is my job. And I’m always up to suggestions from my clients. With the advent of Pinterest and some help from Google, parents are always sending me photos that they’d like me to re-create. When possible, I recreate it with my own spin. However, many of the cute ideas are being showcased without a thought to safety. This applies to many different children’s activities on Pinterest, not just photography ideas. For this particular blog, I’m going to focus on the photos of babies and toddlers wrapped up in Christmas lights. It’s a request I get every single year from many people. However, I have never done it and never will. I hope after reading this, you will never do this either!

Almost all Christmas lights contain high levels of lead. According to this article from Bloomberg: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2010-12-08/lead-in-most-u-s-tree-lights-poses-hazard-for-kids-group-says “Fifty-four percent of holiday lights tested in a U.S. study had more lead than regulators permit in children’s products, with some strands containing more than 30 times those levels.”

And according to this CNN article: http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/12/10/christmas.lights/, “A CNN analysis of four common brands of Christmas lights shows levels of lead experts say are high enough to be dangerous to children.”

Some Christmas Lights are made with glass bulbs. The glass is easily broken and shards of glass can cut your baby, get into their eyes, or worse be swallowed and become a choking hazard.

Babies love to put things in their mouths. In addition to the lead risk, and glass breaking in their mouths, there is electricity running through those lights! There is always a risk of electric shock.

Last but not least, some of these lights can get hot and if not careful can burn your child.

However, there are SO many adorable photos you can take of your child that do not involve them being wrapped up in something dangerous. Below are just a few of my favorites. Wishing every a very safe and merry holiday season!