SAN ANTONIO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--A new study in the Journal of Pediatrics leaves no doubt that traditional “crib bumpers kill kids,” as stated by one of the leading experts, Dr. Bradley Thach. Even in the title of the article, “Crib Bumpers Continue to Cause Infant Deaths: A Need for a New Preventive Approach,” the three researchers insist that the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) take serious and immediate action to ban traditional crib bumpers to prevent further deaths.
In their study published last week, Doctors Scheers, Thach and Woodward uncovered a total of 77 deaths, 44 from suffocation and 33 deaths from entanglement in ties and/or between the bumper and the crib or mattress. Photographs in the Journal of Pediatrics also show infants’ necks getting stuck on top of the crib bumper, often happening with thinner horizontal bumpers. The study cites that, “146 near-deaths also could have been prevented if traditional crib bumpers had not been in the crib.” The study highlights that it is not the thickness of the crib bumpers, but the horizontal nature and reliance on ties that also makes them lethal – thick or thin.
Using data from the National Center for the Review and Prevention of Child Deaths, plus the CPSC’s own data, the team uncovered that even deaths once considered to be SIDS-related were directly caused by crib bumpers. Including the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, and the National Institute of Health all advising against crib bumper use, the scholars scorn the CPSC in their study for simply sitting on the information, even with half the reports based on CPSC's data.
This second study, conducted by the same team from the 2007 study, exposed that crib bumper deaths have more than tripled in recent years. Such a rise does not even include the past 3 years. Furthermore, the collection of data stems from a small amount of reported information and considered an undercount of likely real deaths. Yet, once again, the study questions how the CPSC somehow ignored hundreds of deaths or near-deaths caused directly by crib bumpers and seems to question why the government did not take the opportunity 8 years ago to prevent the high rate of deaths we see now.
The doctors remind readers that in the face of CPSC’s lacking leadership, the City of Chicago and the State of Maryland took matters into their own hands and banned the sale of traditional crib bumpers with the full support of pediatricians. It was the Coroner’s Offices of Maryland, who could no longer endure another death report where crib bumpers were the culprit and not do anything about it. In Maryland’s 2013 law, vertical rail guards, i.e., Wonder Bumpers, which tightly zip around each individual crib rail and are proven safe, are exempt. In the study’s closing remarks, Dr. Thach also lauded vertical bumpers as a seemly safe option that provided airflow and mitigated entrapment and climb-outs.
Wonder Bumpers have also been subjected to 3rd party clinical studies, plus medical evaluations by two US leading infant pulmonary experts. Their findings determined airflow in a crib with Wonder Bumpers is comparable to one with no crib bumper, and that Wonder Bumpers preclude any risk of suffocation or asphyxiation normally found with traditional crib bedding. Vertical guards’ heightened, sleek, vertical padding also protects babies’ heads and bodies while keeping limbs safely inside.
“We applaud these scholars for their tenacity and thoroughness. It is tragic that their initial 2007 study, which cited 27 deaths caused by crib bumpers, did not lead to an immediate federal ban by the CPSC, which has yet to take any action,” laments Georgia Fiebrich, founder of Go Mama Go Designs, which has long advocated for safer bedding regulations. “How can this be? How can a lobbying group like the Juvenile Products Manufacturers Association so influence a federal agency that it does not take the critical action it is specifically charged to do? Where is their accountability? Why are people afraid to talk about this issue? Yes, it’s very sensitive but there are lives at stake. The CPSC’s allegiance should be only to these babies and their families. They obviously failed to respond appropriately the first time. If they do not act now, they will have even more deaths to answer to.”
