LiveWire

A post by Pat

Drop-side cribs (manufactured primarily in China, Croatia, Slovenia, Taiwan and Vietnam) were of such poor quality and so dangerously defective, they are now banned in the United States. Problems resulted in recalling more than nine million cribs in the past five years. In some cases the cheap and defective hardware fell apart while the cribs were being assembled. Horribly in other cases, dozens of infants and toddlers suffocated after being trapped between the mattress and handrail. Trapped babies often could not cry out for help.

A ban of drop-side cribs has been in the works for over a year. Today the CPSC (Consumer Product Safety Commission) issued the ban which will go into effect in June. Hotels and child care centers will have two years to replace drop-side cribs. New safety rules will require all four sides of a crib to be rigidly attached to one another. The moving parts made of cheaper plastics and malfunctioning hardware will be eliminated.

US bans drop-side cribs after deaths

The Government outlawed drop-side cribs today, after the deaths of more than 30 infants and toddlers in the past decade and millions of recalls.

It was a unanimous vote by the Consumer Product Safety Commission to ban the manufacture, sale and resale of the cribs, which have a side rail that moves up and down, allowing parents to more easily lift their child from the crib.

The new standard, requiring cribs to have fixed sides, would take effect in June.

The move by CPSC would also prohibit hotels and childcare centres from using drop-sides, though those facilities would have two years to purchase new cribs.

The decades-old drop-side cribs have come under scrutiny in recent years because of malfunctioning hardware, sometimes cheaper plastics, or assembly problems that can lead to the drop-side rail partially detaching from the crib.

When that happens, it can create a dangerous “V”-like gap between the mattress and side rail where a baby can get caught and suffocate or strangle.In all, drop-side cribs have been blamed in the deaths of at least 32 infants and toddlers since 2000 and are suspected in another 14 infant fatalities.

Many parents, however, still have drop-sides in their homes. They can also be found at secondhand stores.

The new CPSC rules require better assembly instructions and more rigorous safety testing. Many major manufacturers were advocating the ban. They said they had been rigorously testing drop-side cribs but the best tests did not reliably predict failures. Many manufacturers were already discontinuing production. They advocated an outright ban for safety reasons and to avoid losing market share.