US emergency doctors have reported an upswing in treadmill injuries for children during the pandemic, as more parents work — and exercise — from home, a study shows.

Children under 13 may hurt themselves either by using the treadmill or interacting with an adult or older child — leading to friction burns, head injuries, degloving and other serious wounds, the authors say.

Risks are greater when children use the equipment without supervision or if the treadmill is in a common area where they could be exposed to moving parts, a team of emergency doctors write in the American Journal of Emergency Medicine.

“As more people are working from home and children are spending less time in the classroom and more time isolating due to the pandemic, we have seen an increase in injuries from the home,” said lead author Dr Mark Waltzman of Boston Children’s Hospital in Massachusetts.