how many of you make your kids wear heart guards for baseball (or anyother sport)? if you do how young were they when you started making them wear it.
extra info: in May of this year a 9 year old was killed in Arizona taking a pitch to the chest. On average from kids 5-18 4 kids a year die playing baseball due to the ball hitting the heart at the right moment. Whether it be a bad bounce or a pitch or a throw.
So I went down to sports authority and they had a different kind than the ones I researched. This one is sewn into a thin (hot weather under armour type of material) it does not lay flat against the chest and is hard plastic so if a ball does hit it does not touch the heart part of the chest at all. I've read the foam still will impact the chest just not as hard. My son wore it to his first baseball practice and said it didnt get in the way of him batting or throwing so that is a good thing and it wasn't hot. A catchers gear is far more suffocating. I guess if he never gets hit in the heart I wont know but if he does and it helps him i will be grateful for the purchase.
Shut the front door! S., I didn't know I needed to be afraid of that. I'm conflicted. I don't know if I should be grateful to you or mad at you! Now I have a new bad thing to add to my list of freak accidents to worry about.
Since my husband is the doc who see's the kid's who don't wear the chest or heart guards....here is the medical reason it's important...
If a young person receives a strong blow to the chest, the heart can be bruised. As the bruising starts to heal, in some children a tumor can develop. If this happens, within 6 mos to a year, parts of the tumor can dislodge, go to the brain and cause stroke. My husband sees it several times a year.
This same stroke condition can also be caused by or made worse if the child becomes severely sick from a virus that affects the heart muscle. This condition is probably more due to a poor immune system.
So, if you think your kids run the risk of receiving erratic fly balls to the chest, especially in the roll of catcher, they should be protected.
Yes-my son wears one. To be honest I can't understand why people would NOT make their kids wear these. Its such a simple thing to do that could possibly prevent severe injury or death.
And yeah-the stats are ridiculously low for this kind of injury. But try telling that to the parents of the children who have died that way.
In 2006, there were 73.7 million children under age 18 in the United States. So, if 4 die per year from this injury, that is a chance of 4 out of 73.7 million. In one year, five children were killed by bunk beds, 20 by household poisons, 90 by chickenpox, 126 by candles, and 1,100 were pedestrians.
http://www.arthurhu.com/index/health/death.htm
Here is an overview of the types of injuries that are most common for children in sports.
http://www.childrenshospital.org/az/Site1112/mainpageS111...
"Although death from a sports injury is rare, the leading cause of death from a sports-related injury is a brain injury". Heart impact is not even mentioned on this site.
IChildren are much more likely to die from heat-related causes. So, I would hesitate to put them in hot gear, to play baseball on a hot day.
I did not know there was such a thing out there. Thank you! I will most definately get one, my son also wears a mouth guard, we have seen too many broken teeth from balls that bounce up or pop out of a glove right into their lips and mouth.
Just as I get to wind down for the summer now this my kids are in T-ball do they need protection,baseball pants,cup for boys,& this heart guard?Really first practice was yesterday & most of them dropped the ball or tapped it off the tee I don't see anything but a head butt with these small players.Who would of thought that a blow to the chest could be fatal i'm thinking more like a gun shot blow.Thanks for the post
My daughter always wore one when she played softball. She was a pitcher, so it was very important to us that she always wore it. She took a few direct hits.
Yes, our 8 yr old son just started wearing one this season. I didn't even know they existed. My husband bought it. It is a sleeveless shirt with a pad in the middle of it.
Yeah...this is a big deal right now. You can find shirts with the heart protector patch sewed right into the shirt....but I wonder if that bit of extra padding in the shirt would really make a difference...
I would tend toward it, but my son playing also has a heart murmur and a weakened immune system, so probably more due to those matters. I'm really somewhere in the middle though. How hot is the protector? (Said son just spent the weekend vomiting from sun poisoning). Is it effective, or just a sales gimmick based on the recent publicity? At the same time, can you put a price on a child's life? I would have to do more research. I suppose they're like car seats and you shouldn't use a used one, etc. I just wonder if they are effective. This sort of stuff gets publicity big every so often. (Remember the girl who kissed the guy goodnight and died because she had an allergic reaction to his peanut butter sandwich at lunch? -- That's more common, and it's been a few years since that hit the news big). I'm not sure that means we need to stress and worry about every little thing that could happen. But then again, I could never forgive myself if I had the info and didn't do something about it. Thanks to the other posts for the help in researching it! Thanks for asking! Good, relative, helpful question!
I have 11 and 14 year old baseball players and I'm not familiar with this product.
Do you mean a chest protector? They are required in lacrosse and hockey so my kids have worn them since they started playing those sports for real (not just the "learn to play" clinics). I've never heard of them being used in baseball.
Nope we don't wear them. My kids are 11, 6, and 7. We didn't wear them years ago when I played either.
None of my kids wear them or have worn them.
What is a heart guard?
My kids wear chest protectors when they spar in karate. But even with those there is always the risk of receiving a big kick at just the wrong moment between heart beats, etc. It does help disburse the blow throughout the area rather than a pinpoint spot, and protects the ribs, though.
