Crib Recalls – Is Your Baby Sleeping Safely?

New parents are barraged with information the moment they discover a pregnancy. There are guidelines for what a mother eats, what the baby should ride in, and where the baby should sleep. Parents rely on quality products that follow the recommended guidelines. But when those products fail, the results can be absolutely devastating.

There are a few heavily discussed options for where babies should sleep. Fans of attachment parenting find that co-sleeping is ideal, at least for a while. Other parents keep their babies nearby in a bassinet or crib in the bedroom. In fact, it is now recommended that you keep a baby in the room with his parents, although not in the bed, for the first four months.

At four months, the risk of SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome or crib death) decreases substantially, and with the new Back to Sleep campaign, the risk has already been reduced a great deal simply by placing a baby to sleep on his back. But when the baby moves out of his parent’s room, things begin to get a bit more complicated.

Crib Worries
When a baby is moved to his own bedroom at any age, the experience can be a bit rocky for both parents and child. The child can take a while to adapt to the separation and the parents worry about the child they no longer can see and hear every moment of the night. But most sleep well assured that their child is safe in a crib that meets safety guidelines.

But they may not be.

The largest recall of cribs ever has recently been announced. One million cribs manufactured by two of the largest names in baby gear, Simplicity and Graco, have been recalled due to infant deaths. Three babies have died as a result of a defect and many more have been injured or trapped by the crib.

The drop side of the crib apparently was designed so that it could just as easily be installed upside down as right side up. When installed upside down, the side is unstable and detaches from the crib. This causes a gap to appear next to the mattress. When children fall into the gap, they can become stuck, get injured, or even suffocate and die.

The Recall
These deaths spurred the companies to issue a huge recall. Parents who trusted their crib to be as safe as possible now must inspect it to see if it is safe. Of course, they must first check to see if they actually installed the drop side correctly.

Graco and Simplicity offer the following steps to ensure the safety of a crib:

– Check to see if the drop side is installed incorrectly or loose.
– Stop using the crib if there is a problem.
– Don’t try to reinstall the drop side as reinstallation damages the hardware.
– Check to see if the crib has older hardware that is open at the top of the track and flexible at the bottom.
– If there is a problem, call (888) 593-9274 to get a replacement set of hardware to resolve the problem.