Electric oral burns in Danish children with special reference to prevention

68 children, most of them 1-3 years old, with electric burns of the mouth from slight cases to severe burns with extensive necroses were treated over a 30-year period. Principles of primary conservative treatment and secondary reconstructive surgery are mentioned. A Stein- Abbe flap procedure, single or double, has been the method-of-choice in severe defect of the lower lip. In the majority of the cases the accident was caused by a defective bakelite plug from the detachable cord of a popular electric vacuum cleaner of Danish origin. In 1968 a plea was made for a change of this kind of plug to a better type made of an unbreakable plastic material. As a prophylactic measure this intervention seems to have been very useful in so far as the number of these senseless accidents has decreased dramatically in Denmark during the last 15 years.