If you are like most people, you want to take good care of your family. You try to eat healthy foods. You take your children to the doctor for their regular checkups. You try your best to protect your family from accidents and illness. You want to live in a safe neighborhood and home. But is your home a safe and healthy place to be?

Ask yourself:

• Is your tap water safe to drink?

• Are there chemicals in your household products that could make you sick?

• Do your children have breathing problems, like asthma?

• Are poisons kept where your children can reach them?

• Is there lead in your home?

It is up to you to make sure your home is safe and healthy! There are many things you can do and there are people who can help. The following information will make it easy for you to ask the right questions and will show you steps you can take to protect your children’s health

Is the air in your home healthy?

Allergies and asthma are health problems that may be caused or made worse by things in the air you breathe. Since you and your children spend a lot of time at home, the air inside needs to be clean. Does someone smoke in your house? Do you have pets? Is your basement damp? These may cause, or add to, breathing problems.

Too much dampness can cause mold to grow. Some mold is very harmful and some can make allergies or asthma worse. There are household products and chemicals that are dangerous to breathe . Stoves and heaters may produce harmful gases in your home if they are not used properly. It is important to let fresh air in and bad air out.

Can your children be poisoned by lead in your home?

Until recently paint and water pipes often had a metal in them called lead. Lead was also in gasoline and got into the air and soil from car exhaust. It’s not used in these ways any more, but there is still plenty of lead around.

Lead can poison your children by getting into their mouths or breathing it in from the air. If a pregnant woman gets lead in her body, it can harm the unborn baby.

Lead poisoning is a serious problem for young children. It can cause problems with learning, growth and behavior that can last a whole lifetime. Even small amounts of lead can be harmful.

Most problems with lead come from old paint. You are most likely to have lead in your home if you live in an older house or apartment. You can’t always tell if you have a lead problem just by looking. Lead can be a fine dust from the paint in your house or in dirt tracked inside. Lead can also be in the soil and air around your home or in your drinking water. 95% of people living in rural areas use private wells for their drinking water.

Water

Is your drinking water safe?

Do you know where your drinking water comes from? If it comes from your own well, you need to make sure it is safe to drink. Have your water tested every year to make sure it does not have chemicals in it that can make your family sick. There are things you can do to take care of your well to keep the water clean.

You may get your drinking water from a water company. Water companies always test the water before they pipe it to your house to make sure it is safe. You can ask them to give you a report on what they found in the tests. Even if it is okay at the water company, the water can still become unsafe after it gets in your home.

Thousands of children die each year from exposure to chemicals stored and used improperly in the home

Products

Do you have harmful products in your home?

Some products in your home can harm your family’s health if they are not used properly. Common chemicals like bleach, rat poison, paint strippers, and drain cleaners can be dangerous. Children can be poisoned if they get into harmful products.

Even very small amounts of some chemicals can cause health problems if you touch them or breathe them in. Remember: if you spray or pump something, it goes right into the air. When you and your family breathe, those chemicals can enter your bodies.

Almost one- half of houses with a child under 5 had pesticides stored within reach of children

Pesticides

Do you use pesticides in your home?

Your children can come into contact with pesticides many ways. You can take simple steps to protect your children’s health.

Why Focus On Children?

Of course, a healthy home is important for adults, too. Making your home safe and healthy for children protects everyone. And, there are special reasons to think about children: Children’s bodies are still growing so their organs are more likely to be harmed. If children get sick, getting well may be harder. Their immune systems, which fight illness, are still developing.

For their size, children eat more food, drink more water and breathe more air than adults. When they get lead in their bodies or breathe in harmful gases, they get a bigger dose than adults would.

Children play and crawl on the ground. This means they are closer to things that might cause health problems, like dust and some chemicals. And babies and young children put most everything in their mouths —things that might have chemicals or lead dust on them.

Children depend on adults to make their homes safe!