Broome County Child Fatalities Reviewed

The Broome County Child Fatality Review Team says most of the deaths of children aged 0-17 in the county over the past three years could have been prevented.

The team of professionals from law enforcement, medicine, child welfare, and others looked into 44 cases and found 25% of the deaths were due to natural causes, such as illness. 40% of the deaths were certified accidental and the remaining 30% were attributed to homicide, suicide or were undetermined.

The team recommends following the American Academy of Pediatric guidelines for infant sleep safety, providing education to parents and caregivers on drug danger, increasing public awareness of dangers in consumer products, taking safety steps involving swimming pools, locking windows and doors, properly using smoke and corbon monoxide detectors and providing preventative healthcare.

The report can be found at the Broome County Health Department's website at www.gobroomecounty.com/hd.