Kids Health Notes

Keep your babies safe / Don’t do these at home

by Grace on March 7th, 2008

Quilted crib bedding sets are staples of nursery products at many stores, baby showers, day cares and homes. Add these to soft baby blankets, crib bumpers and ultra-soft stuff toys and you could have a recipe for SIDS - sudden infant death syndrome.

From 2002 to 2004, 241 infants died from nursery product related injuries. Of these, 129 deaths were associated with cribs and playpens. Suffocation due to soft beddings, siblings overlays, broken crib parts and entrapments were mostly responsible for the deaths.

So while nursery products were involved, many of the deaths and injuries were not directly caused by failure in the product.

Here are tips to keeping your infants safe at all times:

• To reduce the risk of SIDS and suffocation, place baby to sleep on his or her back in a crib that meets current safety standards
• To prevent suffocation never use a pillow as a mattress for baby to sleep on or to prop baby’s head or neck

• Infants can strangle to death if their bodies pass through gaps generated between loose components, broken slats and other parts of the crib and their head and neck become entrapped in the space.
  • Do not use old, broken or modified cribs
  • Regularly tighten hardware to keep sides firm
• Infants can suffocate in spaces generated between the sides of the crib and an ill fitted mattress; never allow a gap larger than two fingers at any point between the sides of the crib and the mattress
• Never place a crib near a window with blind or curtain cords; infants can strangle on curtain or blind cords.
• Properly set up play yards according to manufacturers’ directions. Only use the mattress provided with the play yard. Do not add extra mattresses, pillows or cushions to the play yard, which can cause a suffocation hazard for infants.
• Routinely check nursery products against CPSC recall lists and remove recalled products from your home

Child safety organizations have recently recommended against the use of crib bumpers. The soft blanket-like bumpers pose suffocation risks and rebreathing of air, which are contributing factors to SIDS.

If you are concerned that your infant’s limbs or head might pass through gaps between crib slats, and would like to add crib bumpers, there are new mesh crib bumpers in the market these days that would allow air to pass more freely.

source: CPSC; image: government

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POSTED IN: Family and Home, First Aid and Safety, Infant Care, Safety and Health