In 2007, recalls and news stories drew attention to lead-laced toys from China. Suddenly, consumers started to pay attention to the steady drumbeat of recall notices. Prior to 2007, children’s products, including nursery furniture, toys, clothing, etc were recalled on average of 2 times a week – yet most parents said they heard of recalls only 3-4 times a year. Starting in 2007, the recalls jumped to 4 times a week.
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The explosion in recalls and public scrutiny of the beleaguered US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) led to the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008 (CPSIA), landmark legislation that addresses many facets of product safety.
What hasn’t gotten as much attention as the lead paint recalls or the provisions of the CPSIA dealing with lead was that many of those recalls were for cribs and other sleeping environments and the CPSIA contains crucial measures to improve crib safety. The flaws in oversight that lead to these recalls have deep roots.
Kids In Danger was founded in 1998 by parents who lost a son to an unsafe portable crib. Danny was trapped and strangled when the top rail of the Playskool Travel-Lite Crib collapsed around his neck. To date, 17 children have died in the same way in cribs and play yards of the same design.
Danny’s death highlights the problems with sleep environment safety. First, the crib was never tested for safety before it was sold. As the first folding portable mesh crib, standards did not exist to test the folding mechanism – so no tests were done. Second, the crib was not tested for durability – this is a product designed to be taken down and set up over and over again – not just by one user, but when traveling, at the caregiver’s home, and other places. Third, once recalled, little was done to get the product out of homes and child care centers. It was only after the sixth child died, a few months after Danny, that child care facilities were notified of the recall. Had a product registration card been included in the purchase, Danny’s caregiver might have learned of the recall from the original owner – a parent with a child still in the child care home.
There were six recalls of cribs in 2007 and twelve in 2008 -- 4.24 million cribs recalled in the last two years, 5.86 million including other sleep environments such as bassinets, portable cribs and play yards. These recalled products were involved in at least 8 deaths prior to recall and many more injuries. The majority of those 5 million products are still in use. Remember, one company responsible for 2.7 million of the products isn’t even in business anymore. While retailers and some licensing companies have taken responsibility for some of their recalls, it still makes it harder for consumers to get the information and comply.
But recall numbers don’t tell the whole story. CPSC statistics show 11,000 emergency room visits due to injuries involving cribs in 2007 and an average of 30 deaths a year from 2003-2005, the most recent statistics on deaths in cribs that CPSC will release, which doesn’t measure the deaths associated with the recent surge in recalls. A historic look shows that in the early 70’s before mandatory crib standards, that number was between 150-200. But from 99-01 the average had dropped to 16, and is now creeping back up.
The existing testing standards don’t go far enough. Of the 5.7 million cribs and other infant sleep environments recalled in the last 2 years, most were certified by the Juvenile Products Manufacturers Association (JPMA) and all were tested to ASTM standards. The JPMA Certification program indicates compliance with the current ASTM standard, which includes any mandatory federal standards as well. From their website, “JPMA is proud to provide a certification program that demands only the best in quality, safety and functionality.” It is troublesome that in addition to failing hardware, design, assembly and durability issues, several of the cribs were recalled for clear violations of the mandatory standard – three failed to meet the side height requirement and one violated the lead paint ban. If the manufacturer’s certification program isn’t catching violations that require a tape measure and a lead test kit, how can it be trusted to adequately test for durability and design flaws? In addition, it is troubling that JPMA describes the recent recalls as “(r)ecent voluntary recalls to replace missing parts for secondhand or second use cribs,” rather than acknowledge the wide variety of design, hardware and materials failures that were involved.
Performance requirements in the mandatory and ASTM standards are currently not stringent enough as it pertains to: (1) the durability of drop-side systems and related hardware, (2) the durability of other crib hardware, (3) wood strength or quality, and (4) the hazards that can result from incorrect assembly. The last major revision of the ASTM crib standard was adopted in 1999 to require more slat integrity. Since that time the same issues of durability, hardware failures, drop side entrapments and mattress support failure have been discussed in committee meetings and by task groups with no resulting standard changes. A proposal to ban drop sides, rather than figure out how to make them safe, is now pending, along with some new guidelines for slat strength.
The CPSIA provides an extraordinary opportunity to improve the safety of cribs and other sleeping environments. There is no doubt that a crib that meets current safety standards is the safest place for an infant to sleep. But that should not preclude working to raise that standard higher – after all, a crib is the only product that must be safe enough to leave an unattended child.
In a section of the bill named for Kids In Danger’s founders’ son Danny Keysar, the law requires CPSC to develop new stringent mandatory standards for a list of durable infant and toddler products including cribs, bassinets, portable cribs and more. It also incorporates language that the Danny Foundation (established by Danny Lineweaver’s family after he strangled on clothing caught on a corner post) have championed for years – banning the sale of unsafe cribs that don’t meet current safety standards.
As CPSC writes a new mandatory standard and develops a strong third party testing program as required by the CPSIA, the process must be open and inclusive. We can no longer allow the fox to guard the henhouse by having JPMA run the standards process as well as the certification process. Manufacturers are an important sector of the standards setting process –their knowledge and experience are invaluable– but that doesn’t mean they should hold the process hostage.
But most importantly, regulators, manufacturers, retailers and standard setting organizations must consider how cribs are used in real life. Contrary to what manufacturers would say is their expectation – there is not a consumer out there who expects to pay anywhere from $200 to over $1000 for a crib, use it for two years for one child and then destroy it. “Lifetime products” allow parents to convert a crib to a toddler bed and then an adult bed – increasing the likelihood a new crib will be bought for a new child. But in reality almost every crib is used for more than one child, for more than 2 years: set up and assembled more than once.
Cribs and other sleep environments for babies aren’t meant to be designer furniture or status symbols. They are first and foremost a safety device -- child protection systems for your home or child care.
Nancy A. Cowles is executive director of Kids In Danger (KID), a nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting children by improving children’s product safety. KID’s mission is to promote the development of safer children’s products, advocate for children and educate the public, especially parents and caregivers, about dangerous children’s products. Contact her at (312) 595-0649, nancy@kidsindanger.org.
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