Yard, Pool & Outdoors
For kids under five, water is the single biggest risk at home — and a four-sided fence is the single most protective thing a pool owner can install. The yard's other fixes are just as concrete.
The 5-minute fixes
- No single product makes a pool safe, so CPSC asks for layers: a full barrier, a self-latching gate, alarms, and an adult whose only job is watching the water. Pool & Spa Barriers, Gates & Alarms
- NHTSA's advice: walk around the vehicle before you move it, teach children not to play near cars and to step away when a driver gets in or starts one, have kids wait to the side of the driveway where you can see them, keep toys and bikes out of the driveway, and keep the window down so you can hear. Driveway Backovers & Front-Overs
Start here
CPSC: between 2019 and 2021, an average of 269 children under 5 drowned in pools or spas each year, about 75% of the pool and spa drowning deaths of children under 15
U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (incl. SaferProducts.gov), 2024
Kids and Car Safety estimates at least 50 children are backed over in the US every week (about 2 do not survive), and the most common victim age is one year. NHTSA counted 284 backover deaths of all ages in 2015
Kids and Car Safety ("Backover Facts"): the 50-children-a-week estimate is theirs; the 284 deaths (all ages, 2015) are NHTSA's figure (DOT HS 812 515, April 2018) as they report it.
Next up
AAP (HealthyChildren.org): more than 800,000 children were hurt on trampolines between 2009 and 2018, and kids under 6 should never jump
American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), 2018
CPSC: each year about 50,000 children go to US hospital emergency rooms for injuries on home playground equipment, and about 80% of those injuries happen when children fall from the equipment
CPSC, Outdoor Home Playground Safety Handbook (Pub. 324, 2005). Figure as printed in the handbook; CPSC's newer public-playground handbook counts about 190,000 ER-treated injuries a year on playgrounds overall.
When you have a minute
A cracked, missing or loose drain cover in a pool or spa; a replacement cover with no compliance marking or model information you can look up; a hot tub or pool where kids play near the drain.
EPA: wood treated with chromated copper arsenate (CCA) was used in residential decks and playsets prior to 2004; EPA does not require removing existing CCA structures
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 2025
Weed killer, fertilizer-and-pesticide mixes, slug bait or pest sprays in a shed, garage or porch where a toddler can reach them; products poured into an old drink bottle or unlabeled container; a recently treated lawn kids are running on.
A hazy sky or the smell of smoke, an air-quality alert from your local agency, or a smoke plume on the AirNow Fire and Smoke Map near you.
Air in this room
What can end up in the air here, from fumes and off-gassing to combustion gases.
Read more about air
Shop safer for this room
Our reviewed picks for the products that live here. Each one links to its category page, not to a store.