ST. PETERS, Mo. – A St. Peters childcare center is at the center of a lawsuit following a head injury the mother says she was never told about.
The mother says she later learned her infant son had a skull fracture.
The Missouri Office of Childhood cited Kids Kingdom on Four Winds Drive in St. Peters with failing to supervise a 5-month-old when he reportedly fell out of a bouncer and onto his head. The state also cited the center for failing to tell the infant’s parents anything even happened.
“This was entirely preventable,” attorney Chris Finney said.
Finney just filed a lawsuit over the incident that happened last October.
“You never want to hear that your young child has a skull fracture and a subarachnoid hemorrhage,” he said.
The report from state investigators confirmed a complaint that “Staff did not call the parent… when he fell out of a bouncer and hit his head.”
Finney says the mother happened to notice a bump later while “…bathing the child,” he said, “getting ready for bed, and notices that this is not right—there is some swelling developing where the fracture site was.”
The state report says investigators later learned daycare employees “heard child A’s bouncer seat flip over backwards and heard crying.”
“A couple children crawled up, started pulling—older kids—pulling on the seat. It creates kind of a bouncy effect,” Finney said. “They then let go, child flips out.”
Finney says his investigator later found the bouncer in the facility’s dumpster.
“The large majority of daycares and childcare facilities do a phenomenal job,” he said.
Finney recommends checking online for your daycare’s inspection record as well as doing your own spot checks to see if your daycare is using items, like child bouncers, the right way.
“It has got a strap to secure the child—on both sides—into the seat, so you cannot flip out of it,” he said. “It’s relatively stable when it’s used as intended.”
Kids Kingdom had no response to our phone call or personal visit asking for a comment.
We’ve put together a map of childcare facilities facing substantiated complaints this year, which you can find here.