Ensuring Child Safety Comes at a High Price
As parents and caregivers, we go to great lengths and expense to protect our children. We have child safety locks, car seats and gates. We look for foods in the grocery store with the freshest ingredients. But still daily, things that can hurt children get through our child safety nets. Toys and jewelry with lead paint. Magnets that can be swallowed then tear a little one’s intestines. Defective cribs and bassinets. Blinds that can strangle a toddler. Vaporizers that cause face and limb scarring forever.
See more about dangerous toys.
Lack of Crib Safety
After being rocked to sleep in her mother’s arm, a 22-month baby was placed in her Childcraft drop side crib for an afternoon nap. She awoke and pulled herself up to the crib’s side rail. The decorative knob caught and entangled her T-shirt, hanging and asphyxiating her. Ten minutes later her mother found her lifeless body suspended just inches from the floor.
The most common lack of crib safety involves younger children (12-months of age) who are caught on a corner post extension or similar “catch point” by either a neck cord or clothes while inside the crib. The other pattern is similar to the one noted above which involves older children (22-months of age) who are caught on the corner post extension while they are climbing over the side of the crib. Strangulation occurs after the children fall or attempt to lower their bodies to the floor of the room.
Infants are particularly vulnerable to the lack of crib safety because they do not have the strength to extricate themselves once caught. Or have dexterity necessary to free themselves from entanglement.
Government moves to ban drop-side cribs in May 2010
- Drop-side cribs—which have one side that lowers to allow parents and caregivers easy access to a baby or toddler have caused at least 32 infant drop side cribs deaths in the country since 2000 according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission.
- In 2009, there were 11 deaths linked to Simplicity-manufactured drop side cribs. Despite recall and warnings, the drop side crib’s hardware can crack or deform, causing the drop side crib to detach. This detachment creates a space between the drop side and crib mattress that babies can roll into and become entrapped, leading to suffocation risk according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission.
- In 2008, a family sued Disney over a bassinet death. Alleging the company allowed sales of the bassinets despite a flawed design that had been linked to another baby’s death a year earlier. The drop side created a gap where baby could slide through and hang to death. Simplicity was the manufacturer.
Although www.recalls.gov tries to disseminate important product recall information, many times it doesn’t get into the hands of families who need it the most. So across the country parents and schools are organizing websites that offer timelier child safety news and recalls. Here’s an example: www.clickcheckandprotect.org
As a parent, you want to keep your children from harm, but often the most dangerous risks to child safety can be found right in the comfort of your own home.
An Item made for child safety backfires: In 2008, a father was vacuuming and turned around a saw that his young daughter was on the floor grabbing at her throat and struggling to breathe.
Scared out of his mind. He grabbed her, opened her mouth and saw lodged in her throat the clear plastic child safety cap he had removed from an electrical outlet to plug in the vacuum. The child safety cap was like a stopper in a drain, blocking her airway. He was able to remove it without serious injury.
The law requires rigorous child safety standards for products created and marketed to children. If your child was killed or seriously injured as a result of a child safety issue, we know that no amount of money can make up for the trauma you and your family are going through. But we hope compensation from the parties at fault can help you cover medical expenses and ensure that child safety remains a top priority for our communities.
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