Health & Safety

If your child is a pitcher, he/she has about a fifty-fifty chance of experiencing pain in his/her elbow or shoulder during his/her baseball career. Not surprisingly, baseball has been the most widely studied youth sport in the United States, so that the risk factors for overuse injuries are well-established.

The signs and symptoms of overuse injury should not be ignored as "growing pains" but should be taken seriously by the athlete, parent, and coach, says a 2011 position statement on overuse injuries issued by the National Athletic Trainers' Association.

Overuse injuries account for fifty percent of all youth sports injuries, but half are preventable, says the National Athletic Trainers' Association in a new position statement.

MomsTeam Founder and Publisher, Brooke de Lench, talks about the difficult decision to pull a son with a history of multiple concussions and learning disabilities out of high school football and lacrosse, and says parents should have a right to expect when they entrust their children to a sports program that it will take reasonable precautions to protect them against harm. In other words, parents have a right to expect that the entire team to whom they entrust their children's safety — including the national governing body for the child's sport, the state association, the athletic or club director, the athletic trainer (if there is one), and especially the coaches - are part of the concussion solution, not part of the problem.

Football still has the highest number of concussions and concussion rate at the high school level, but concussion rates are also high in boys' hockey and lacrosse, and girls' soccer, lacrosse and field hockey, says the most recent study.

A concussion may result from a direct blow to the head, face, neck, or elsewhere on the body where the force of the blow is transmitted to the head. Concussions occur from blows to different parts of the head and of varying magnitude.

On June 20, 2010, Texas governor Rick Perry signed into law H.B. No. 203, the state's youth sports concussion safety law.  Dubbed Natasha's Law after Natasha Helmick, a moving force behind the law, the Texas statute is one of the most detailed and comprehensive of the twenty-three enacted to protect youth athletes since the Zackery Lystedt Law was signed by Washington Governor Christine Gregoire in May 2009.

On July 8, 2010, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick signed the Commonwealth's youth sports concussion safety law, which applies to all public schools in the state and any school subject to the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association rules. Originally slated to go into effect on January 1, 2010, the law was subsequently amended to give it immediate effect.

Connecticut's youth sports concussion safety law was signed on May 18, 2010 by Governor M. Jodi Rell, and amended in May 2014 to strengthen the concussion education requirements.

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie signed the Garden State's youth sports concussion safety bill into law on December 7, 2010.