The Danger of Cribs

On June 24, 2010, the Consumer Product Safety Commission (“CPSC”) announced seven sweeping recalls of cribs in order to address safety hazards, including entrapment, suffocation, and falls. The recalls were part of a campaign by the government to remove “drop-side” and other crib hazards from the marketplace.

Over the past five years alone, 9,000,000 (nine million) drop-side cribs have been recalled. Studies have shown that drop-side cribs tend to be “less structurally sound” than cribs with four fixed sides. Known hazards include entrapment of a baby’s head or chest in between the mattress and the crib side, leading to suffocation injuries and even wrongful death.
The crib brands involved in the most recent recalls include Child Craft stationary (between 40,000 and 50,000 units) and drop-side cribs; Delta drop-side (747,000 units) and certain fixed-side cribs using wooden stabilizer bars; Evenflo “Jenny Lind” cribs (750,000 units); Jardine drop-side cribs (130,000 units); LaJobi drop-side cribs (306,000 units); Million Dollar Baby drop-side cribs (156,000 units); and Simmons drop-side cribs (50,000 units).
While proper labeling, recalls and regulations are important for the safety of children’s products, manufacturers have a responsibility to ensure only safe products reach the marketplace so as to not cause any catastrophic injury. The millions of dangerous cribs flooding retail store shelves before their hazards are identified highlight the inadequacy of current safety protocols. There is simply no excuse for companies to sell dangerous cribs to consumers. The burden must be on manufacturers and retailers, not consumers, to identify hazards before their products enter the channels of commerce.
By James A. Swartz of Swartz & Swartz P.C. – Permalink