Toilet injuries presenting to emergency departments, 2000–2019

Objective: Toilet training is a major developmental milestone. Unsupervised periods combined with immature gross and fine motor skills may lead to toddler injuries during toilet training. Our aim was to investigate toilet-related injuries (TIs) in children. Methods: Data from the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System were used to evaluate emergency department encounters of children ages 0 to 6 years with TI from 2000 to 2019. Results: There were an estimated 142,606 children (95% confidence interval, 115,599–168,613) who presented to the emergency department for TI. Toilets were involved in 95% of injuries, and other potty chairs (PCs) involved 5% of injuries. Children had higher odds of sustaining head injury while using a toilet versus PC (adjusted odds ratio = 1.91; 95% CI, 1.06–3.45). Conclusions: Toilet-related injuries present a high burden of risk to young children. Our data support that the safest vessel for use in toilet training is a PC/training seat as opposed to the toilet.