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Background: Mobile phone as an invention of the modern world has managed to penetrate not only the most distant parts of the world but also various age groups in a person’s life. There is a need to evaluate the children’ interactions with these modern devices as they might have a significant effect on their behavior, sleep patterns, and psychological addiction. Objectives of the research were: to study the socio demographic characteristics of children using mobile phones, to determine the average time duration of exposure to mobile phones, and to determine the age of initial exposure to mobile phones. Methods: It was a descriptive cross sectional observational study. The study was conducted at Sri Manakula Vinayagar Medical College and Hospital. All the children between the age group of 0-12 years visiting the pediatric outpatient department fulfilling the inclusion criteria were enrolled in the study. Results: Of the 248 children enrolled in the study mobile phone exposure was found in 143 (57.66%) boys and 105 (42.34%) girls. 67.74% of the parents agreed that the mobile phones were being used by their children just for fun without any intended or specific use. 26% of the times it was used to engage the children when the parents were busy. 30.24% of the kids had a screen time of less than 30 minutes on a daily basis. 23.39% of the children were used to the screen for more than 2 hours in a day, on a cumulative basis. It was noted that more than 50% of children were exposed to mobile phones within 1 year of age. The earliest age of exposure to mobile phone was 2 months of age. Conclusions: Regardless of the socioeconomic status the accessibility and the owning of the mobile phones is same across the socioeconomic strata. The need of the hour is to raise awareness among the parents regarding the excessive use of mobile phones among children and their possible adverse impacts on physical and psychosocial health.

Background: According to the World Health statistics, in 2016 more than 100000 deaths were caused due to unintentional poisonings. Children are vulnerable due to their smaller body surface area, an inherent behaviour of negation, curiosity in exploring their surroundings, their initial phallic stage where they tend to put any objects they come across into their mouth.Methods: This study is a hospital based retrospective observational study where the records of all the children admitted due to poisoning, accidental or intentional from June 2012 to November 2018 were reviewed. All the children admitted due to food poisoning and idiosyncratic drug reactions were excluded from the study.Results: A total of 203 cases of accidental ingestion were admitted during the study period, of which the majority of the patients were male children. The age group varied from 5 months to 14 years. Majority of the accidental ingestions were due to kerosene (108), followed by insecticides (25) and cleaning agents (20).Conclusions: Poisoning in young children is unintentional and accidental; hence the introduction of safe child resistant containers should be encouraged in storing harmful chemicals. Knowledge about the chemicals, awareness about their hazardous effects and education of the care givers about safe storage would be the first step in the prevention of accidental ingestion. Establishment of a reporting system from all the health care centres and establishment of poison information system at all the levels is the need of the hour.