Pediatrician Reacts To Concerning Video Of A Mom Taking Her Baby Down A Slide
The video generated tons of shocked reactions and lots of panicked advice — most of it bad, according to one doctor.
Mila Supinskaya Glashchenko, Carlos David / Shutterstock.com; Canva Pro Most parents have pure intentions, but every now and then you see a parenting choice online that makes you wonder what on Earth a mom or dad could have been thinking.
Such is the case of a recent viral video showing a mom taking her infant down a giant slide. It left tons of people online downright shocked, and they had lots to say about how the mom should have handled things. But it turns out, their advice might not be so great.
A pediatrician is warning parents following the video of a mom taking her baby down a slide.
The video of the mom taking her baby down a slide is truly wild. It shows a young mother and her baby going down one of those huge, bumpy slides you often see at carnivals or play places for kids.
But the slide is far too big and rough for such a small baby so it ends up being... well, a video in which a baby is hurled down a slide like a rag doll while everyone on the internet gasps in horror.
As one commenter on TikTok put it, "baby would have been better off just going alone not holding moms hand!" Many wondered why on Earth the mom didn't just put the baby in her lap to go down the slide instead of dragging it down like a sack potatoes. Turns out, though, that's really bad advice, according to TikToker and pediatrician Dr. Tommy Martin.
Dr. Martin says putting babies in your lap on a slide is actually unsafe, and that most babies shouldn't be on slides at all.
In a stitch of the viral video of the mom taking her baby down a slide, Dr. Martin lamented, "The comment section of that video was terrible. Comment after comment kept saying, why was the baby not in her lap?"
He then laid out some basic rules for safety when it comes to kids and slides, and it turns out... well, though she surely was just trying to have a bit of fun with her baby, this mom kind of violated every one of them.
"Number one is make sure the slide is age appropriate," Dr. Martin said. Then, giving the polite version of what most of us screamed at our screens in horror, "Obviously, that giant slide is not appropriate for this kiddo." He acknowledged that he doesn't always make the perfect choice on this matter himself with his own son.
But still, full-grown adults get hurt on these kinds of slides all the time. Remember that infamously viral death-defying slide that had to be closed last summer after people kept careening down it with roughly the same grace as that poor baby above?
Do not take your kids on these slides! But even on a more normal slide, Dr. Martin says the instinct to put your youngster in your lap for the ride is a really, really bad one because it frequently results in major injuries.
"Do not put your child on your lap," he said in his video. "I have seen multiple children come to the hospital with broken limbs because they slide on their parent's lap. Their little feet and legs get stuck up under you and break." Yikes.
Slide injuries are thankfully less common than you might suppose. According to Consumer Product Safety Commission data, around 350,000 kids were injured on slides between 2002 and 2015, roughly 27,000 out of the more than 200,000 kids total who show up in emergency rooms with playground injuries each year.
Still, of those 27,000 kids hurt on a slide, broken bones are the most common injuries, so heeding Dr. Martin's advice is definitely good medicine.
But if you take nothing else away from this moment, please let it be this: do not drag your infant down a giant slide like a bag of laundry, okay? Please? Great, now go have fun on the playground!
John Sundholm is a news and entertainment writer who covers pop culture, social justice and human interest topics.