Over 2 Million Fisher-Price Snuga Baby Swings Recalled for Suffocation Risk

“Once again, Fisher-Price is putting its bottom line first and safety last,” says William Wallace, CR’s associate director of safety policy. “There should be a full refund, and Fisher-Price should be urging people to throw away these swings. Retailers, online platforms, and secondhand marketplaces should all prohibit Snuga Infant Swings from being sold and take a range of steps to make sure they aren’t listed.”

Richard Trumka, a CPSC commissioner, also said on Thursday that the company’s response wasn’t good enough. He released a statement saying that this recall is “doomed to fail and will keep many babies in harm’s way.” He argued that the entire swing remains unfit for infants to sleep in and that parents should throw the whole thing away. And he called the company’s decision to only refund consumers $25 to alter the product—rather than offer them the full price to destroy it—“a horrible example of putting profit over people.”

Trumka also cited Fisher-Price’s long history of partial recalls and refunds related to baby products, and the consequences. The company recalled the Rock ’n Play inclined sleeper in 2019 after a CR investigation linked it to dozens of deaths, but it didn’t offer full refunds to all consumers. Eight babies died after the recall, bringing the total number of infant fatalities to over 100. In 2022 Fisher-Price warned parents not to use its infant-to-toddler rockers or newborn-to-toddler rockers for sleep but didn’t recall them, despite 13 deaths.

A challenge with any recall involving baby products is that they often get handed down, regifted, and resold for years afterward. The Snuga swings are no longer for sale and haven’t been manufactured since 2022, but they’re still being sold on the secondary market. So several CPSC commissioners wrote letters to Craigslist, eBay, Facebook, Goodwill Industries, Mercari, and Nextdoor to alert them to the Snuga swing recall and ask for their help in preventing the illegal sale of these products.

Inclined sleepers, which were specifically marketed for sleep, are now banned, but many other inclined products (like swings, gliders, soothers, and rockers) remain on the market. In Thursday’s recall, the CPSC reminded parents never to use these products for sleep and to supervise babies while they’re using them. 

Mattel, Fisher-Price’s parent company, didn’t answer CR’s questions about criticisms of its recall but stated that the full swing isn’t being recalled and that parents may continue to use it, just not for infant sleep.

Safety experts, however, say the product is unsafe to use because of the risk of children falling asleep and potentially suffocating.

CR recommends that infants should always sleep on a firm, flat, noninclined surface with no added items such as blankets, pillows, crib bumpers, or toys in their sleeping space. If babies fall asleep in an inclined product, they should be moved to a crib, bassinet, or play yard.

“Simply put, a baby who falls asleep in an inclined product is at increased risk of suffocation and death,” wrote CPSC Chair Alex Hoehn-Saric and Commissioner Mary Boyle in a joint statement, adding that there’s much more work to be done to protect babies from dangerous products. “We call on all those who profit from the sale of infant products to American families to step up to this important responsibility: keeping babies safe.”

CR’s experts note the CPSC’s hands are tied on recalls like this.

“Something a lot of people don’t know is that the CPSC can’t easily force companies to issue a strong recall. Typically, the agency can only get companies to carry out recalls that are voluntary and on the terms that the company agrees to,” Wallace says. “This is an absurd and dangerous reality. Congress should pass a law bolstering the CPSC’s ability to force companies to carry out strong recalls, especially in cases like this where children have died.”