The marketplace is a minefield for new parents. Buying the wrong product can put newborns and small children at risk.
"Just because it's out there doesn't necessarily mean that it's safe," says Lessa Payne, infant mortality prevention coordinator for Arkansas Children's Hospital's Injury Prevention Center.
Parents need to be aware of which products are safe -- and which aren't -- for their youngsters. That includes keeping up with which products have been recalled because of demonstrated or potential safety hazards and defects.
Some hazards are omnipresent, like the disc-shaped batteries that power a lot of electronic gadgets. "They won't be recalled because they're in everything," Payne says. "But they're not just a choking hazard, they're poisonous."
But dangers lurk in places where babies ought to be safe, including cribs and car seats, which still show up in massive manufacturer recall lists every month.
On July 1, Graco, one of the nation's largest car seat makers, recalled 1.9 million infant and toddler convertible car seats and harnessed boosters because of a faulty buckle design. That's on top of a February recall of 3.8 million safety seats for harness buckles that could get stuck in the latched position, especially if coated with food or dried liquids -- kids spill things in car seats the way they do everywhere else. As part of the recall, Graco will supply replacement harnesses for the 18 affected models.
In April, Payne says, Evenflo, another major car seat manufacturer, recalled 1.4 million seats made between 2011 and 2014 for essentially the same problem. Evenflo has been sending out free remedy kits that include a replacement buckle and installation instructions. (Using the seats isn't a big risk, the hospital says, if, while you're waiting for replacement buckles, you make sure to keep
the buckles clean.)
Children's Hospital offers parents of newborns a car-seat fitting station. "Most of our seats come from Evenflo, and before we give [parents] these seats, we have to put on this new hardware so it'll be safe," Payne notes.
Car seats also come with expiration dates.
"Most car seats last six years. A more expensive car seat may last longer," Payne says. "Every car seat comes with stickers [that will tell] you when it was manufactured and when it expires. It's important to keep those stickers on there."
But, she insists, it's not a good idea to buy a used car seat.
"It's not safe to purchase a car seat from somebody you don't know -- No. 1, because it could have been in an accident, and if it's been in an accident, you don't need to use it. Or it could be missing some labels; you don't know if it's expired. You need to know the history and where it came from."
Payne says it's all right to reuse car seats up to the expiration date, as long as the weight limit and the size fit the child: "If you purchased a seat for a newborn baby and the next year you got pregnant again, you can use the same seat. If your friend bought a car seat four years ago, and she purchased it new, it would be safe because [she] could tell you the history."
CRIB SHEETS
"The safest place for a baby should be the crib," says Nikki Fleming, communications specialist at the Consumer Product Safety Commission and part of the team heading up the commission's Safe Sleep for Babies campaign, which focuses on durable nursery products.
Fleming says there are a lot fewer crib recalls than there used to be, primarily because after a rash of more than 11 million crib recalls that peaked in 2010, crib safety became a commission priority.
All cribs must now have a manufacture date, and parents should make sure when buying a crib, particularly a used one, that the manufacture date is June 28, 2011, or after. Under Consumer Product Safety Commission rules and regulations (16 CFR) it is illegal to sell or resell a crib made before that date, Fleming says.
"We actually work with online auction houses," she adds. "We have a surveillance team, looking for those and to let consumers know not to let a deadly danger fall into the hands of folks who didn't realize it."
New regulations are also in place on the strength of slats, on hardware and on crib mattresses, all aiming to reduce the number of crib deaths, Fleming says.
These are in addition to an older regulation that mandates that crib slats be no more than 2 3/8 inches apart.
"That's about the size of a soda can," Payne says. "If you can put a soda can between the slats, then they're too wide and a baby can get his head through there and may not be able to get it back out."
It's important to do a little research when considering a hand-me-down crib, Payne says.
"If you have a used crib, or are going to look at a used crib, or it's an heirloom, the important thing is to make sure it hasn't been recalled," she explains.
"You need to make sure a secondhand crib has all its parts. Sometimes when people take cribs apart, parts go missing. And you need to make sure there's a firm mattress. The way you test for that, you put on a crib fitted sheet, and if the mattress bows up any, it's not firm enough to hold that sheet."
And, Fleming notes, new crib regulations specify that mattresses must fit snugly in the crib itself: "on all four sides, you should not be able to get more than two finger widths between the mattress and the sidewall."
Moreover, Payne and Fleming agree that parents should be careful to limit what they put in a crib.
"All that should be in that crib is the mattress and the sheet, and then you put the baby in there," Payne insists. "That's a safe sleep environment.
"You don't want anything else. You don't want to have soft toys or blankets, especially if it's a newborn. They can get those items up around their faces and they could suffocate."
The idea, Fleming adds, is to "keep baby cozy without all the clutter." The baby can wear footed pajamas to keep feet warm. And, she says, the Academy of Pediatrics recommends you place the baby on his back.
Children's Hospital gives new parents a "New Parent Planner" kit, available by registering on the website archildrens.org/Parent-Packet.aspx. It includes a registry guide, a list of nursery essentials "that can help you create the best environment for your baby, including sleep sacks and pacifiers," and reminders about items they don't need, "like unsafe sleep positioners and bumper pads."
"Here at Injury Prevention, we do a safety baby shower with expectant moms," Payne says. "We teach them about all kinds of things -- drowning, falls and 'shaken baby.' We talk about all these topics, and it's really important to get this information out to the public so they're aware that there are things we can do proactively to keep our children safe."
NO NAP NANNIES
Cribs and car seats, of course, aren't the only products that put youngsters at risk. Fleming says the Consumer Product Safety Commission has been trying to get parents to shun an infant recliner with the brand name Nap Nanny. It has caused at least six deaths, despite multiple recalls since 2010 and a legal settlement against the manufacturer, which, according to the commission, has since gone out of business.
The commission website cpsc.gov, the primary source for keeping up with product recalls, lists three bicycle recalls in June; there were two more in May. On the list are also recalls for children's clothing that fails to come up to federal flammability standards or that poses choking hazards.
Not all recalls are for hazards to kids. Britax recalled thousands of its strollers recently because adults could injure their fingers while folding them.
The commission also operates a website called recalls.gov that covers a wide spectrum of recalls across various government agencies, including the Food and Drug Administration, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the U.S. Agriculture Department and even the Coast Guard.
Safe Kids Worldwide (safekids.org), a nonprofit concerned with any threat to children's safety, updates a list of recalls that might affect babies and kids, also across a wide agency spectrum. It offers an email newsletter so parents can get word of a recall as soon as it's issued.
And the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which has jurisdiction over car safety seats, lists recalls of those as well as other car-related recalls at safercar.gov.
Children's Hospital recommends that families fill out and mail in registration cards for car seats, strollers, cribs, play yards or any other toys and devices so manufacturers can contact them directly if there's a recall, and provide instructions for what to do next.
SAFER THAN EVER?
Fleming says she's convinced that there are fewer unsafe products on the market than there used to be, especially toys. The commission oversees more than 15,000 categories of products, yet sees only 300 to 400 recalls a year.
"Recalls, on the whole, in many areas are down," she says. "On the government side, the majority of our recalls, more than 95 percent, are voluntary recalls by the company." When it finds a problem, the commission offers companies three choices: repair, replace or refund.
Payne agrees that there's ordinarily no reason for consumer outrage when it comes to recalls.
She thinks that companies do test, and when a test turns up a problem, recalls happen. "It happens with cars all the time," she says.
"I'm glad that someone catches it, that they do recalls, and that we can go back and make sure that things are safe."
Family on 07/23/2014