Canadian parents can nonetheless purchase crib bumpers at baby-gear shops. That wants to alter.
Picture it: You’re strolling up and down the aisles at your native baby-gear retailer. You’re pregnant, anticipating your very first youngster, and excitedly studying about what you’ll want for that all-important first 12 months.
A stroller, so you possibly can take some leisurely walks along with your baby? Check!
A number of one-piece zippered PJs, to make middle-of-the-night diaper adjustments simpler? Check! Throw not less than eight of these in your cart.
A crib bumper, to make sure a delicate and cozy sleep setting to your baby?
Hard no. Keep strolling.
Although crib bumpers can be found at baby-gear shops in a wide range of lovable colors and fashions, they’re in truth not protected for infants. That’s why yesterday, US president Joe Biden signed laws to ban the sale of crib bumpers. They’d already been banned in a number of states, however now, they’re unlawful throughout the nation. The Safe Sleep for Babies Act of 2021 (H.R. 3182), which was signed into regulation on Monday, May 16, 2022 and goes into impact 180 days later, prohibits the manufacture and sale of crib bumpers (as properly as inclined sleepers).
What is a crib bumper?
Crib bumpers are pads that line the within of a crib. They are supposed to stop infants from getting an arm or leg caught between the crib boards, or to guard them towards rolling their heads into the laborious slats. They are additionally generally used to maintain pacifiers from falling out of the crib. As with many baby merchandise, they’re offered each individually and in bundles with different nursery objects.
Are crib bumpers harmful?
Health Canada and the Canadian Paediatric Society warn towards utilizing crib bumpers as a result of research have linked them to baby deaths. This can happen in a number of methods:
- Babies can suffocate if their faces grow to be pressed towards the material of a bumper pad.
- A baby’s head can get trapped between the bumper pad and the aspect of the crib.
- Long ribbons, strings or ties could cause a baby to grow to be tangled or strangled.
- Children can use bumper pads to climb out of their crib as soon as they’re able to pull themselves up right into a standing place. They might fall from the crib and be significantly damage.
There isn’t a lot Canadian information on crib bumper risks. Researchers say that bumper-related incidents are seemingly under-reported as a result of some deaths which are decided to be from suffocation could also be attributable to bumpers however aren’t recorded as such.
In her observe, Toronto paediatrician Dina Kulik says she has by no means had a affected person expertise a problem with a crib bumper, however she nonetheless strongly recommends towards them. “We know that having anything in the crib increases the risk of suffocation and SIDS,” Kulik instructed Today’s Parent.
What about mesh crib bumpers?
The US laws particularly doesn’t embody mesh crib bumpers, which means this product will nonetheless be out there on the market. The implication is that, not like padded bumpers, mesh crib bumpers are protected.
But are they?
It’s doable that mesh bumpers could scale back suffocation threat to infants (even if the phrase “breathable,” which seems on some mesh crib bumpers, is an unregulated advertising time period and in truth refers back to the capacity of water to move by means of material.) However, they proceed to trigger accidents and fatalities by entanglement or strangulation. A current report from the US Product Safety Commission discovered that 13 p.c of crib-bumper accidents between 2008 and 2019 have been attributed to the mesh variety.
Why are crib bumpers nonetheless out there in Canada?
We reached out to Health Canada to ask why crib bumpers aren’t prohibited in Canada, and if they could someday be banned. Through a spokesperson, the group mentioned that whereas crib bumpers, which it calls bumper pads, aren’t prohibited, “Health Canada recommends against the use of all types of bumper pads in its guidance to parents and caregivers.” It added that between June 20, 2011 to March 31, 2022, Canada’s Consumer Product Safety Program acquired just 4 incident experiences associated to crib bumper pads. One of the experiences concerned an harm, which occurred outdoors of Canada.
In the US, this ban occurred as a result of two motivated politicians, Senators Duckworth and Portman, pushed it by means of. Perhaps that’s what must occur in Canada. Parents who stroll by means of a baby-gear retailer and discover a product out there on the market can’t be faulted for believing the product is protected and beneficial. Products that have been beforehand believed to be protected can certainly be pulled off the shelf—Kulik factors to baby walkers and baby positioners as examples. This is what must occur to crib bumpers, too.
