“When we develop evidence of hazards - especially that a product is associated with infant deaths - we can and have prioritized these risks and taken action to warn and protect consumers from products posing such risks.”ĬPSC Commissioner Peter Feldman, one of the Republicans who removed infant pillow regulations from the 2022 operating plan, said that the agency “simply had not yet laid the required groundwork” necessary to move forward at the time, and that taking shortcuts could have made any new requirements vulnerable to being overturned in court. “CPSC has long warned of the dangers of putting infants to sleep in products not intended for sleep, including soft, pillow-like products,” the CPSC said in a statement to NBC News. Instead of pursuing a hard rule, the CPSC took a piecemeal approach to address the issue: The agency commissioned a research study on infant pillows, a category that includes both infant loungers and nursing pillows worked with the industry to develop voluntary safety standards for loungers and took enforcement action against individual manufacturers. “It set us back and delayed safety benefits to the public.” “It delayed meaningful change that could have started protecting infants,” Trumka said. In a statement to NBC News, CPSC Commissioner Richard Trumka Jr., a Democratic appointee who joined the commission in December 2021, called the delay a “grave error” by the prior commission that put babies’ lives at risk. The decision to put off new regulations for baby loungers in 2021 was part of a series of amendments that the CPSC Office of Inspector General later criticized as violating rules requiring advance notice to the commission of major proposed changes. Nursing pillows have also been tied to reports of deaths, prompting the CPSC to investigate and warn caregivers against using them for sleep. The Boppy lounger is distinct from the company’s popular, horseshoe-shaped nursing pillow, which has not been recalled. “They are intended to aid parents during awake time only and include warnings against unsupervised use.” Germain, a spokesperson for The Boppy Company, said in a statement. “Boppy products, including the Newborn Lounger, have never been marketed as infant sleep products,” Amy St. Industry representatives argue that loungers are not hazardous if used as intended: on the floor as a place to lay down babies who are awake and closely monitored. The 25 deaths tallied by NBC News are almost certainly an undercount, according to product safety experts, as autopsies do not always mention specific consumer products. It could save lives.” Layla Parker is shown here just after she was born. “I don’t understand why they wouldn’t push that information out there, knowing that there are more deaths that are not reported. “It is infuriating, and it’s senseless,” said Megan Parker, of Alton, Illinois, whose 2-month-old daughter, Layla, died in a Boppy lounger in 2019. All of the babies were under a year old the youngest was 4 days old. In one instance, after an 11-day-old baby died of Covid in a lounger, a local government agency identified “unsafe sleep” as a potential factor in the death. In some of the reports to the CPSC, the loungers were listed as one of multiple factors contributing to an unsafe sleep environment, while in others, no cause of death was listed. Many of the incident reports cited suffocation, asphyxiation or a loss of oxygen as the cause of death, and seven lawsuits accused the loungers of causing the babies’ deaths. This count is based on an examination of government data, court documents, public reports reviewed by the CPSC, medical examiners’ reports, and records obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request. In addition to those four deaths, NBC News determined that at least 21 other babies died in infant loungers from December 2015 through September 2021, more than twice as many deaths as the CPSC cited in public warnings about specific brands of loungers. The following spring, according to another report, a 4-month-old died from asphyxiation on a lounger produced in China that was advertised on Amazon as “perfect for co-sleeping.”
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |