A new report from the Department of Health Services says 894 Arizona children died last year, and over a third of the deaths were preventable. Mary Ann Cunningham of DHS says traffic accidents were among the main causes because of restraint issues.

 “We need to stress that every child gets in the car and puts their seat belt on,” Cunningham said. “Actually the numbers of children who died this past year from car crashes, a good number of them were the older children, the ten and older.”

Unsafe sleeping conditions were also high on the list of causes of child deaths. But, Cunningham says even though deaths have been on the increase the last two years, the overall rate has gone down, since 2005.