House Passes Two Bills Promoting Safer Children's Products

“The House today approved the STURDY Act with bipartisan support,” says Gabe Knight, a policy analyst at Consumer Reports. “Now it’s time for the Senate. This lifesaving bill has the support of parents, pediatricians, safety advocates, and even major companies in the furniture industry. Every senator should stand with American families to help them keep their homes safe and their children protected from a furniture tip-over tragedy. There’s no time to waste.”

For Crystal Ellis, whose 2-year-old son Camden was killed by an Ikea dresser in 2014, the vote is a major step in the right direction, but she feels there is still work to do. 

“I am elated that we have continued bipartisan support in the House to keep children safe from the dangers of furniture tip-overs,” says Ellis, who is also a founding member of Parents Against Tip-Overs, a nonprofit group of parents whose children have died from furniture tip-overs. “With children continuing to die at the rate of about two fatalities per month due to tip-overs, lives absolutely depend on STURDY becoming law.”

The second bill passed today is the Safe Sleep for Babies Act, which would ban two dangerous infant sleep products: inclined sleepers and crib bumper pads, both of which are unsafe for infant sleep and together have been linked with more than 200 reported deaths.

The bill was prompted in part by a CR investigation that revealed dozens of deaths were tied to infant inclined sleepers, such as the Fisher-Price Rock ’n Play Sleeper, which have been largely unregulated until now. The American Academy of Pediatrics has advised against using inclined sleepers and crib bumpers because they both increase the risk of suffocation and sleep-related infant death.

“Lawmakers today sent a clear message: Unsafe sleep products must be banned from the market,” says Oriene Shin, policy counsel at CR. “As the Senate takes up safe sleep legislation, we also urge every manufacturer and retailer to support the CPSC’s newly approved rule, which requires that all infant sleep products meet strong safety standards.”

The passage of the Safe Sleep for Babies Act is bittersweet for Erika Richter, whose 2-week-old daughter Emma died in a Fisher-Price Rock ’n Play Sleeper in 2018. “ It is with great sadness and disappointment that the changes captured by the Safe Sleep bill were not made sooner. It cost too many lives, including the life of my daughter,” Richter says. But, she says, ”I am hopeful that bipartisan support for the legislation will continue and that this bill finally becomes law. I remain committed to seeing that through for my daughter and for all the innocent lives that need protection.”

The vote was praised in a statement from Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Frank Pallone Jr., D-N.J., and Consumer Protection and Commerce Subcommittee Chair Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., as a “strong step toward protecting American families by keeping dangerous products off the market.”