When My son was 4 ( he is now almost 14) he was on a neighbor's trampoline. It had the safety netting up all around it so my mother in law thought it was safe to put my son on. He bounced happily for a few minutes and then some other kids got in too. He, being the little guy, was getting launched higher and higher. He landed on his arm the wrong way and ended up bending his arm backwards at the elbow, breaking his arm through the growth plate. He was rushed to CHOP and had to have surgery to repair his arm. He spent the entire summer in casts with big pins sticking out everywhere. While we were at CHOP the head of the children's Orthopedic Surgery told us that the week before my son came in he treated a 9 year old girl who had been jumping on a trampoline and did a forward dive roll, she ended up breaking her neck and was totally paralyzed. We count our blessings everyday that our son was not as seriously injured as that poor girl. The surgeon also told us he saw an increase each year in trampoline injuries and the injuries were not due to children falling off of them but rather landing incorrectly while bouncing. So those safety nets don't really mean a whole bunch to our family.

With all due respect, what activities that require physical activities cannot cause broken bones in kids??? We wonder why there is an obesity problem with kids. It's not the food served in the school's cafeteria, but lack of exercise such as gym and outside games after school. Reasonable care taken by adults still cannot prevent accidents, that's why they are called accidents. I'm not sure how we child-proof children and still have them active.

Joe, as a practicing pediatrician in Rydal, one of my greatest challenges is getting kids off the sofa, away from their computers and video games, and having them participate in outside physical activities, whether organized sports or just individual exercise. But, if you read the article and recommendations on recreational trampoline use from the American Academy of Pediatrics, that activity remains one fraught with high risk of injury. Extremity fractures and especially neck and spinal injuries resulting in neurologic damage including paralysis are inherent in recreational trampoline use. For those reasons, I counsel my patients not to participate in this sport. Yes, there is risk with any activity from biking to swimming to soccer, but trampoline use carries its own set of specific risks that I find difficult to justify. Adult supervision and safety features built into the newer trampolines can lessen the risks to some degree, but not eliminate them. With that said, the bottom line is this - kids need daily physical activity and exercise. As parents, it's our job to encourage them and ensure that they "just do it!"