Crib recalls highlight the lack of crib durability standards

You’d think that all cribs would provide a safe and comfortable environment for babies. But over the last three years, there have been more than one and a half million full-sized cribs recalled, many due to failures of the hardware or of the wooden slats and spindles.

Those structural failures can result in serious strangulation, entrapment and fall hazards. The defects contribute to the more than 11,000 serious crib and mattress-related injuries each year and an annual average of 32 fatalities for children under five.

There are far more deaths associated with cribs and mattresses than with any other type of nursery product, and 25 percent of those deaths resulted from the use of cribs with broken or missing components. Although cribs are regulated by the Consumer Product Safety Commission, there are no federally mandated durability test requirements.

The consequences of weak standards? Recalls, including the largest crib recall in history. In 2007, Simplicity recalled more than one million cribs because of drop-side failures resulting from both the hardware and crib design. This year Babies ‘R’ Us recalled 320,000 of its Jardine cribs because the slats and spindles could break too easily. Both the Simplicity and Jardine cribs met the federal regulations and the current ASTM safety and performance standards for cribs, which, as we've noted, do not go far enough.

Read the rest of this blog entry on our Safety blog, which includes steps consumers can take to keep their children safe.