More kids are being hospitalized for broken collarbones, a new study has found.

In fact, the hospitalization rate for broken collarbones more than doubled among children between 2014 and 2021, researchers reported.

This increase occurred even though the overall rate of childhood clavicle fractures remained relatively stable during the past 10 years, researchers said.

“This suggests that while the rate of clavicle fractures is stagnant, the severity of these fractures is rising,” wrote the research team led by Charu Jain, a student at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City.

For the study, researchers analyzed records from an injury surveillance database representing about 100 ERs in the United States, looking for collarbone fractures among kids 18 and younger.

They wound up examining more than 391,000 cases of broken collarbone that occurred between 2014 and 2023.

The hospitalization rate for broken collarbones rose to a high of 2.6% in 2021 from a low of 0.8% in 2014, researchers report.

This jibes with previous studies that found more kids require metal implants to properly set their broken collarbones, indicating the fractures are too severe to be treated with a simple sling or cast, researchers said. 

The study also found that younger kids are more likely to sustain a broken collarbone falling out of bed, while tweens and teens more often suffer breaks playing sports like football, results show.

Although 45% of broken collarbones occurred in children younger than 10, that age group accounted for more than 97% of fractures related to beds or bed frames, results show.

“Among younger children, there has been an increase in bed-related falls causing clavicular fractures,” senior researcher Dr. Sheena Ranade, an associate professor of orthopedics at Mount Sinai, said in a news release.

“Just as there has been a strong emphasis on safe sleep for infants, this study shows that attention should be placed in safe sleeping environments for toddler-aged children to prevent falls out of bed,” Ranade said.

On the other hand, children 11 to 18 represented 84% of all collarbone fractures that came from playing football, researchers found.

The most common causes of clavicle fractures overall were football (17%), falling from bed (11%), soccer (7%) and bicycles (7%), results show.

“Understanding common mechanisms like sports injuries and falls from beds can help guide targeted prevention strategies and parent education,” Jain said.

The new study appears in the journal JSES: Reviews, Reports & Techniques.