PeaPod Travel Tent Bed Recall Issued After Infant Death

About 220,000 travel tents designed for infants and young children have been recalled after at least one infant suffocated to death and 9 other young children became entrapped between the mattress and fabric sides of the tent.

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) announced the PeaPod Travel Bed and Travel Bed Plus recall on Friday, in response to the death of a five-month-old boy and other reports of children becoming entrapped in the tent-like beds. The recall affects travel beds sold in the U.S. and Canada.

The PeaPod Travel Tents are small portable sleep tents marketed for use by infants from birth to 3 years old. They have a zipper compartment that the air mattress fits into, allowing for the tent to be tightly folded for easy transport.

When the air mattress is blown up, it creates tight creases at the base of tent, which may pose a potential suffocation hazard if a child became lodged between the base mattress and fabric sides. This scenario is assumed to have been the cause of death for a 5-month-old New York child that was found dead by his parents inside of the tent.

The CPSC indicates that it has received at least six reports involving problems with the travel tent beds and Health Canada is aware of another three incidents.

In all of the reports, young children became entrapped or experienced physical distress while in the PeaPod bed. In two cases, the babies were found crying under the matress, which had not been placed into the zippered pocket on the bottom of the tent. The five-month-old was found with his face pressed against the side wall of the tent, but no cause of death has yet been determined.

The CPSC warns that the travel beds are a suffocation and entrapment risk and has determined that infants can roll off the edge of the inflatable mattress and get trapped between the mattress and sides of the tent.

The recall affects the KidCo PeaPod Travel Beds and PeaPod Plus Travel Beds sold in the following colors: teal, red, lime, periwinkle, ocean, princess/red, camouflage, quick silver, sagebrush, cardinal, and green. The model numbers are P100, P101, P102, P103, P104, P201, P202, P203, P204, P205, and P900CS, respectively. The model numbers are located on a small tag on the underside of the travel beds. The model numbers can be found on a small tag on the underside of the products.

The PeaPods were sold at specialty stores nationwide and online through Amazon.com for between $70 and $100 since January 2005.

The CPSC recommends that consumers immediately stop using the tent and get a free repair kit by calling KidCo at (855) 847-8600, or by visiting the company’s website at www.kidco.com.