Safety checklist: Outdoor poisons and stings

Child Safety Foundation of New Zealand

Outdoor poisons safety checklist

• Keep garden shed locked
• Teach your child not to eat anything growing outside without asking first
• Buy plants that are not dangerous (see below)
• Avoid buying prickly plants

Plants to avoid:

• Cherry laurel
• Deadly nightshade
• Foxglove
• Yew
• Alder
• Bryony
• Ivy with berries
• Monkshood

Plants that cause sickness:

• Blue bell bulbs
• Honeysuckle berries
• Delphinium
• Lupin/Lily of the valley
• Privet/Rhododendron
• Snowdrop/Wisteria
• Potato Plant/Fuchsia
• Mistletoe/Rhubarb leaves

Stings

• Teach your child to stay away from hives and nests
• Ensure you are aware if your child is allergic to stings. Let other carers know.
• Ensure your child has shoes on when outside
• If child is allergic always make sure you have antidote handy
• Clear up sticky foods when outside
• Always pour drinks out of cans and bottles
• Use an insect net over carry cots and prams
• Ensure your child has insect repellent on

First Aid

• Comfort the child immediately
• Take sting out and cool area
• If sting is around mouth or throat ring 111 immediately
• If child is allergic ring 111 immediately
• Call Poison Centre 0800 Poison / 0800 764 766

This checklist has been kindly provided by the New Zealand Child Safety Foundation , one of New Zealand’s least known but most valuable charitable foundations. Among the many services provided by the Foundation is the Train the Trainer Child Safety Parent Workshops. These free workshops are proving to be a wonderful tool for a growing number of organisations to use to inform/advise their parent groups on injury prevention skills. For more information visit their website.