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Crib Bumper Safety in the Spotlight

Crib bumper safety is becoming more of an issue recently. It’s not just the suffocation and entrapment hazards that come with drop side cribs that California injury attorneys are concerned about. It’s also the under estimated risk of suffocation that come when cribs are equipped with crib bumpers.

Many parents choose to place bumper pads on their children’s cribs. These pads wrap around the inside of a crib, and are often used to make a crib look cozy. These are also meant to help prevent babies from getting their heads knocked on the wooden slats of the crib. They also prevent infants from getting their limbs caught between the crib slats.

However, these bumper pads have also been linked to suffocation hazards among infants. These hazards are not exactly new. In fact, federal consumer safety agencies have been aware of the hazards from bumper pads for a while now. The Consumer Product Safety Commission has even warned parents about the dangers of suffocation from these bumper pads. The industry group that is meant to set the standard for bumpers says it will consider the issue, but no action has been taken yet.

Meanwhile, the Consumer Product Safety Commission has also said that it will revisit the bumper pad safety issue. The agency is likely to reopen old files involving suffocation fatalities from bumper pads. Besides, the Consumer Safety Commission is also likely to evaluate the safety of the bumper pads that are currently on store shelves around the country.

There are other complications involved when a suffocation death is linked to <strong>crib bumper safety</strong> pads. The Consumer Product Safety Commission has indicated that it will analyze investigations into crib deaths to examine whether bumper pads were present in the crib at the time of the accident. According to the Consumer Product Safety Commission, it has received more than two dozen reports of infant deaths associated with suffocation hazards and bumper pads over the past two decades. However, considering that many, if not most, of bumper pad suffocation-related fatalities are not being reported, it highly likely that the actual number of such infant deaths associated with bumper pads is much higher. The CPSC admits that it is highly likely that many bumper pad-related deaths have not been investigated properly.

In fact, in the past, the agency has downplayed the importance of bumper pads in suffocation deaths, saying that these could be a possible factor, but were not necessarily the cause of the suffocation.

Experts have been warning about bumper pad safety for a while now. Two years ago, a pediatrician at Washington University raised questions about the safety of these pads. That doctor concluded that approximately 27 deaths between 1985 and 2005 could be traced to bumper pads. Besides, it is likely that many of these incidents of bumper pads suffocation are going unreported because they’re being labeled as sudden infant death syndrome.

The Reeves Law Group is a law firm with offices throughout California dedicated exclusively to the representation of personal injury victims, including victims of product liability. Please visit our website at trlglaw.com. If you desire a free consultation on a personal injury matter, please call us at (800) 644-8000 or email us.

The Reeves Law Group is not representing any party in the matters discussed in this posting.

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