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Re-activateThe group that sets voluntary safety standards on cribs, ASTM-International, has accepted a proposal that could effectively eliminate drop sides on full-size cribs.
Since the beginning of 2007, the Consumer Product Safety Commission has announced 19 crib recalls totaling nearly 4.3 million full-size cribs.
Featured on many cribs, drop sides allow caregivers to raise and lower one side for better access to their babies. But faulty drop-side hardware has contributed to the deaths of children who became entrapped and strangled in the gaps created when it failed. In fact, a full three-quarters of the recalled cribs were due to failures of the crib drop-side hardware. (Such as the recalled Delta crib pictured at right.)
At Consumers Union, we've been seriously concerned about durability issues and the number of crib recalls associated with drop sides. Neither the CPSC's regulations nor the ASTM voluntary standard on cribs is comprehensive enough to catch all of the failures that have occurred in consumer's homes. We're worried enough that we've begun recommending that consumers in the market for cribs look for models with stationary sides until more stringent and comprehensive safety standards can be developed.
Read the rest of this post on our Safety blog.
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