Florida Injury Lawyer Blog

Parents rely on cribs as a safe haven - a secure place to leave babies unsupervised while they tend to other responsibilities. According to a new study published in the journal Pediatrics, cribs are not nearly as safe as we think.

Cribs, playpens and bassinets are responsible for injuries to 26 babies each day (9,500 every year) in the United States. Those figures do not take into account the approximately 100 crib-related infant deaths ("crib death") that occur each each year.

The author of this study, Gary Smith is also the director of the Center for Injury Research and Policy at Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio. He says that “cribs are unique among other children's products. Parents expect to be able to place a child in a crib and know when they walk away that child will be safe. We need to hold cribs to much higher safety standards as opposed to baby equipment you are supposed to only use with parental supervision.”

The study focused on the number of injuries in children under the age of 2 who were treated in hospital emergency rooms for crib-related injuries between 1990 and 2008. It's authors relied on data from the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission's (CPSC) National Electronic Injury Surveillance System. Many more children are treated in doctor's offices or urgent-care centers and those cases are not even included in the study.

Continue reading "Dangerous Cribs - New Study Shows Cribs Responsible For Many Injured Babies" »

Two infant deaths have prompted a massive crib recall. The recall of cribs made by Delta Enterprises is being called the largest crib recall in U.S. history. The cribs pose an entrapment and suffocation hazard to infants. For more information, contact the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC).

China has had more than its share of dangerous, defective products making news lately. Now dangerous, defective Chinese-made cribs are said to pose the risk of entrapment and strangulation which can lead to infant brain damage or death. Already at least two infant deaths are being attributed to the recalled cribs so far.

New York-based Delta Enterprises recalled almost 1.6 million cribs manufactured in China, Indonesia and Taiwan after it said two babies died. No other details were made available.

Following the announcement by Delta Enterprise Corp. that it was issuing a massive crib recall following the deaths of two infants, the CPSC is considering changing its rules covering crib defects. According to an agency spokesperson, the CPSC was prompted to consider rule changes after its Early Warning System identified issues with the durability of cribs, especially those with drop sides that can disengage and lead to entrapment and strangulation hazards.

The crib recall is one of the largest ever initiated in the U.S. and follows another recall of 2,000 Chinese-made portable cribs which was issued by the CPSC just last week. Those cribs made by Playkids USA of Brooklyn, New York were recalled following the death of a 5-month-old infant. The baby died due to suffocation in August after becoming entrapped between the mattress and the drop side rail of the convertible crib.

This latest recall comes about a year after a massive recall of Mattel toys manufactured in China which were tainted with lead.

More recently, milk contaminated with melamine killed at least four children and prompted Chinese-made products to be pulled from shelves around the world. Tens of thousands of children fell ill with kidney stones.

In August, defective Simplicity bassinets were also recalled after they were implicated in the deaths of two children.

Prior to the August recall of dangerous bassinets, Simplicity recalled 1 million cribs in September 2007. Until this announcement by Delta, last year's Simplicity recall was the largest crib recall in US history.

Continue reading "Alert - Delta Crib Recall - Design Creates Risk Of Infant Death " »