Posted on 05/23/2010 6:34:39 PM PDT by upchuck
[Edited for excerpt]
The baby crib, usually a safe haven for little ones, became a death trap for 6-month-old Bobby Cirigliano. The side rail on his drop-side crib slid off the tracks and trapped his head and neck between the mattress and the malfunctioning side rail. His face pressed against the mattress, the boy suffocated.
Bobby was one of at least 32 infants and toddlers since 2000 who suffocated or were strangled in a drop-side crib, which has a side that moves up and down to allow parents to lift children from the cribs more easily than cribs with fixed sides. Drop-sides, around for decades and probably slept in by many of today's parents, are suspected in an additional 14 infant fatalities during that time.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission, which regulates cribs, has warned about the problem. Its chairman, Inez Tenenbaum, has pledged to ban the manufacture and sale of cribs by the end of the year with a new performance standard that would make fixed-side cribs mandatory. It could be several months into 2011 before becoming effective.
"There's a great urgency here. We have to make sure that no parent is unaware that drop-side cribs could kill their children," Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., said in an Associated Press interview.
She plans to introduce legislation this week to outlaw the manufacture, sale and resale of all drop-side cribs and ban them from day-care centers and hotels. Gillibrand wants to accelerate efforts for a ban, from Congress or the CPSC, and highlight concerns about the cribs to parents who are using them.
"There still are thousands and thousands of children who are sleeping every night in drop-side cribs and we need to protect them," said Gillibrand.
(Excerpt) Read more at finance.yahoo.com ...
32 deaths in 10 years? I would think more children died doing a swan dive off the top of the crib, wearing Superman pajamas and humming the theme song to Rocky.
The one other thing all these infant deaths had in common was inattentitve parents.
Congress should seize on this opportunity to once and for all ban parenting, instead of moving incrementally towards that end.
Ultimately, snatching all children and raising them in government run kinder camps is their aim, is it not?
32 in 10 years? That’s not a crisis and no reason to obsolete about a million US baby cribs. More babies die yearly co-sleeping with adults who roll over them and those adults are not charged with any sort of penalty.
Years ago, we had a portable crib and the top 1/3 or so of one side could be released at each end and dropped down flush with the outside of the lower 2/3 of that side.
Saved Mom’s back and could be easily put back up. Similar to releasing a truck tailgate except those only drop out at a 90 degree angle instead of 180.
Well how are supposed to get them out of the crib then? If you lean over the side you could put your back out. I had one of those cribs and it was fine. Maybe we should just ban babies-perhaps Obama could make an executive that babies after they are born automatically turn 5 and then they are in a big bed. I am disgusted with the governemnt please leave me alone
“More babies die yearly co-sleeping with adults who roll over them”
Not really - that is pretty rare.
Not sure how they malfunction. We had one of these for our daughter and I am a safety fanatic and worry wart of the highest degree. Don’t recall ever seeing a possible danger.
That is a very minuscule figure when viewed among all the hazards that beset infants. How many infants died because the parent didn’t want to bother with a clumsier crib design?
Over 275 children have drowned in buckets since 1984. Shall we ban those too? 100 people die every year from eating peanuts. Where does it end?
How many MILLIONS of babies have slept in these cribs night after night for years without ever having a problem, you Marx-faced, nanny-state GOOBERSMACK!
O LAWD these people make me sick!
How about stops on the bottom that would prevent the side from dropping down far enough to suffocate a child but still allow the ease of removing the child from the crib by allowing the side to go down 1/2 or 2/3’ds of the way to the mattress?
Perhaps it's just easier to tell others no rather than encourage a simple modification or two to remove the problem altogether?
At least have stringent testing and licensing requirements , like say , for fishing .
Ah yes, I seem to remember my son climbing out of the crib at about the age of 18 months and nearly killing himself in the process. He’s 24 now and survived that and much, much more! In fact, both of my kids survived the so-called “death-trap” drop-down-side crib!
And during that time how many black and other minorities were... aborted?
(crickets -- you draw the conclusion)
Conversely, SIDS is the big one at over 4000 per year. The best deterrent for this, thus far, is circulating air in their room with a portable fan or ceiling fan. There may have been more recent studies, but this was the last I'd seen.
Or, if there is a rash of crib sides coming off of tracks, how about something like safety cables to limit how low they can go?
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