SHANGHAI - A lack of awareness by young parents about child safety is being blamed for the preponderance of accidents involving children, many of them fatal, during summer holidays in the city.

The Shanghai Municipal Center for Disease Control & Prevention says that between 2006 and 2010 the average death toll in accidents involving children in July and August was about 20, much higher than at other times of the year.

"Parents being neglectful, the inherent safety risks of residential buildings and family problems are three main reasons for the more frequent child accidents," said Zhao Ying, vice-president of the Shanghai Women's Federation, at a meeting of the standing committee of the Shanghai Municipal Committee of the Communist Party of China.

Zhao said 52 percent of accidents with children happened in their homes. And more than 40 percent of those occurred when parents left their children unattended. Yang Xiong, the director of the youth institute at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, in a report on how young couples educate their children in the city, said nearly 40 percent of children younger than 12 had been left alone at home last year.

"As more parents in the city work full time, the pressure on them in balancing jobs and taking care of their children can be extremely high," Yang said.

Parents must realize the importance of looking after young children, who are prone to be injured in outdoor activities and accidents in the home, he said. Many of the deaths and injuries were the result of falls from high-rise apartment blocks.

"In the past three years more children were injured after falling out of beds or out of open windows when parents were absent," said Zhang Ying, a senior officer at the Shanghai Children's Medical Center.

Traffic accidents and drowning were the three other main causes of child deaths, she said.

Most of the absentee parents were either migrant workers or young white-collar couples who did not have enough time to take care of their children.

Wang Zhiping, 38, who lives in Shanghai and has a 2.5-year-old son, said he does his best to take care of the child.

During the day at least one of Wang's parents-in-law is with the boy at home, he said.

"All the wooden floors in our apartment are fitted with plastic carpets, and there is a playroom whose floor and walls are covered with soft materials so my son can play safely."

In the bathroom, the toilet seat is fitted with a special lock to prevent his son from playing with dirty water.

Sharp edges of desks and chairs in the home have protective coverings, as do electrical sockets.

"It's also important to teach children with warnings, so I always remind my son to be careful when he is jumping up and down," Wang said.

"I sometimes warn him to stay away from open windows."

There has also been a call for more attention to be paid to the mental state of parents and to family problems. In two separate incidents in Shanghai last month, two children died after their young parents threw them out of apartment windows.

"Hopefully more will be done to educate and help young parents realize that they need to take responsibility in caring for their children by providing a healthier environment," Zhao said.