
The number of furniture & TV tip-overs is staggering. According to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) report; 22,500 Americans, annual average, required emergency treatment for tip-over related injuries. Of these, nearly 44% of the injured were children under 18 years of age. The report found that there have been 581 fatalities since 2000 involving furniture, TVs, or appliances, of which 472 were children.
• 71% of all child fatalities involved a television
• 62% of fatalities of all age groups involved a television
• 55% of fatalities involved people being crushed, and
• Head injuries accounted for 66% of fatalities.
Three or Move Drawers Tall; Tether to the Wall
Infant House uses this rule as there are not any “official” standards concerning securing furniture. This includes most changing tables, a chest of drawers, armoires, book cases, desks, grandfather clocks or any unstable furniture such as a table top TV. If the furniture is too so fragile that it cannot be secured, our recommendation is to discard it our move it to a secured room.

Specifically TVs Tethered to the Wall
TVs are prolific as prices have come down in recent years. They are also more massive and therefore, able to cause more damage and injury. Since 71% of the fatalities involved a television, Infant House recommends that they be mounted to the wall. If that is not possible, we recommend that they are tethered to their stand. At this point, the stand needs to be tethered to the wall to keep the whole thing from tipping over. The pictures below are our work.


Securing Furniture Best Practices to Prevent Tip-Overs
For the best results, each piece of furniture requires a minimum of 2 furniture straps. The straps need to be installed according to the manufactures instructions. The furniture straps that we currently use are professional grade. We attach them to a stud in the wall and then to the back of the furniture. The straps use a buckle and this makes adjustment easy. At this point, we give the furniture what we call “the toddler tug”, to be sure we test our work. The pictures below are before straps, after and finished.
Preventing Furniture & TV Tip-Overs
This only takes a few minutes to complete. If you need assistance and live in Austin, Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston or San Antonio Texas areas; contact Infant House.
This piece of furniture is actually 2 pieces and we used 4 straps to secure it. Baby proofing is a deterrent and nothing replaces the watchful eye of a loving caregiver.