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Supermarket aisles sometimes can be as dangerous as busy highways.

A report in the journal Pediatrics warns that shopping-cart-related injuries are extremely common, frequently resulting in the serious injury and even the death of children.

Researchers say 24,000 children were treated for such accidents last year in the United States, with 74 per cent suffering from head and neck injuries. Fractures were also common. Using the U.S. figures as a guide, it's reasonable to estimate that there are 2,400 similar mishaps in Canada annually.

Young children apparently get hurt in numerous ways: falling from or becoming caught in carts, carts tipping over, falling off a cart while riding on the outside, cart collisions and even being run over by a cart.

An expert panel assembled by the American Academy of Pediatrics is calling for new industry standards -- including child restraints or the equivalent of shopping-cart seat belts.

Some grocery chains already have child-safe carts. But they vary so much in design and stability, it might be hard for parents to figure out whether their local store has a good one.

(A restraint will do little to protect a child if the cart tips over, and a top-heavy cart can tip if another sibling jumps up on the side of it.)

"Parents are strongly encouraged to seek alternatives to transporting their child in a shopping cart until an effective revised performance standard for shopping cart safety is implemented," urges the team lead by Dr. Gary Smith of the Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio.

The experts suggest leaving children at home, shopping on-line, or using other means, such as a stroller, to ferry a child around a store.

However, even the experts acknowledge these are not practical options for a lot of people. So if parents must put their children in a cart, they should not be left unattended, allowed to stand up or ride on the outside of the cart.

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