Install window guards and balcony barriers if you have kids at home; screen windows do not count as protection

11. Install window guards and balcony barriers if you have kids at home; screen windows do not count as protection

Cost: A set of window guards or child safety locks costs just a few dozen yuan to install, and the whole process takes only ten minutes.

In plain terms: These window guards cost only a few dozen yuan each. New York City once offered free window guards to high-risk households and provided on-site guidance; as a result, child fall incidents reported in one borough dropped by half over three years. Eventually, New York even passed a law requiring landlords to install such guards in rental units with kids under 10. Screen windows, however, can be easily pushed open — they do not provide any real protection.

Benefit: Since 1972, New York City has run a program called “Kids Can’t Fly,” which distributes free window guards in high-risk neighborhoods and offers on-site safety guidance. Between 1973 and 1975, child fall incidents reported in the Bronx dropped by 50%. Following this success, New York updated its health code to make it mandatory for landlords to install window guards in all apartments housing kids under 10 years of age.

Evidence grade: B

Sources: Spiegel CN, Lindaman FC (1977). Children can't fly: a program to prevent childhood morbidity and mortality from window falls. American Journal of Public Health: "Significant reduction in falls resulted, particularly in the Bronx, where reported falls declined 50 percent from 1973 to 1975", 1976 "to require that landlords provide window guards in apartments where children ten years old and younger reside". <https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.67.12.1143>; (2021). Unintentional Window Falls in Children and Adolescents. Academic Pediatrics: 2007 1 2017 8 38,840 , "The majority of falls occurred in children under the age of 6 and were related to falls from a second story or below". <https://doi.org/10.1016/j.acap.2020.07.008>

Notes: Avoid placing beds, sofas, boxes, or any other objects near windows or balconies that kids might climb onto. Screen windows only keep mosquitoes out; they can be easily pushed open, so never rely on them as a safety barrier. This protection is needed even on lower floors: most child falls recorded in U.S. data actually occur on the second floor or even lower.