With the rise in childhood obesity in the United States looming over the heads of millions of parents, many are encouraging children to become more active through daily play and recreational sports. Children as young as three participate in a wide variety of physical activities including all types of dance, football, baseball, swimming, soccer, martial arts and much more.

According to the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) approximately 3 million children and adolescents ages 14 and under are hurt every year playing sports or participating in recreational activities and the majority of organized sports-related injuries (60 percent) happen during practice. With nearly 30 million children playing team sports or engaging in recreational activities regularly, 3 million injuries annually is a big number.

Among the injuries most likely to occur, you will find the following: sprained ligaments, strained muscles, stress fractures, heat injuries, bruises, dental injuries, and head injuries. The most severe of these is the head injury. When there is a death related to childrens sports activity it will most likely happen because of a brain injury and chances are, the child will have been skating, skateboarding or on a bike at the time of the injury.

The death of a child due to any injury sustained while engaging in sports or recreational activities is very rare. More often than not, any pain or injury a child gets playing sports is relatively minor and can be treated at home using simple pain relief measures.

While some pediatric sports injuries will require medical attention, there are common injuries that can be taken care of from home. Bruises, sore muscles, scrapes and cuts can all be handled at home using simple remedies like an ice pack, a heating pad, and even over-the-counter pain medication. Older children, especially teenagers who participate in junior varsity and varsity contact sports like football, soccer, basketball and baseball, can take advantage of deep-penetrating topical creams for pain.

The best places to get the most effective topical creams for pain relief are from chiropractors' offices or from the office of a physical therapist. Mass retailers, like WalMart and Walgreens, sell some prescription strength products over-the-counter. One that we found on a WalMart shelf is Blue-Emu , a topical cream that claims to soothe bruises, sore muscles and more using, among other key ingredients, Emu Oil. A little research showed that the Aboriginal people of Australia have long used Emu Oil to cure a myriad of aches and pains. For older child athletes, a strong topical cream may be just what they need for sore muscles.

According to the AAP, children between the ages of 5 and 14 account for roughly 40 percent of sports-related injuries for all age groups. While we want to encourage children to live active, healthy lifestyles we also need to be certain that we are taking every precaution to ensure their safety as they play.