Unsafe Sleep Environments Lead to Majority of Nursery Injuries: CPSC

Federal regulators have issued new infant sleep product rules, following 523 deaths linked to nursery products over a three year period.

Recently released data shows that 174 children under five died on average each year from 2019 through 2021, due to unsafe sleep environments created by commonly used nursery products, such as cribs, cradles, playpens, inclined infant sleepers and infant carriers.

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) released its annual report on injuries and deaths linked to nursery products last month, indicating that there were 523 deaths among children under five years old between 2019 and 2021, with cribs and mattresses accounting for nearly a quarter of the fatalities.

Federal regulators reviewed information on both emergency room visits and reported deaths from nursery products among infants and toddlers, concluding that most of those fatalities occur from unsafe sleeping conditions, which could be prevented.

The report found that five different types of widely used nursery products accounted for at least 77% of all deaths for children under five that were identified by the CPSC during the selected timeframe, including:

• Cribs and mattresses—24%, or 126 in total
• Bassinets and cradles—22%, or 115 in total
• Playpens and play yards—17%, or 91 in total
• Inclined infant sleep products—7%, or 38 in total
• Infant carriers—6%, or 30 in total

CPSC data also shows that there were 60,400 emergency room-treated injuries from nursery products for this age group in 2023 alone. That is roughly 327 injuries for every 100,000 children in the U.S., and almost 1,000 more than that same age group faced the year before.

CPSC Infant Sleep Product Rule Has Been Updated

As the number of infant deaths from nursery products have mounted in recent years, the CPSC has focused on updating its sleep product rules, to ensure all parents and caregivers are able to avoid dangerous products and unsafe sleep environments.

Attention on the risks posed by many commonly used infant products increased dramatically after federal officials found that more than 100 children had died in Fisher-Price Rock ‘n Play sleepers since 2009, leading the CPSC to issue new product standards for bassinets and cradles in July 2022, requiring all infant sleep products to have a sleep angle of no more than 10 degrees. The Rock ‘n Play did not meet this requirement.

A complete ban on all inclined infant sleepers and crib bumpers was eventually approved by the CPSC in August 2023, after the U.S. Congress passed the Safe Sleep for Babies Act the year before.

Inclined infant sleepers and crib bumpers are now widely recognized to pose a severe risk of suffocation when children are able to roll over independently, which may cause them to become trapped against the fabrics.

“Babies aren’t little adults. They don’t need pillows and blankets to feel comfortable and safe when they sleep,” CPSC Chair Alex Hoehn-Saric said in a press release announcing the new nursery product injury statistics. “The safest way for your baby to sleep is without blankets, pillows, or other items surrounding them. A firm, flat surface in a crib, bassinet, play yard or bedside sleeper with just a fitted sheet is all they need.”

Despite all of the action taken in recent years to help keep infants and toddlers safer, studies show that parents continue to place their infants in unsafe sleeping conditions.

To avoid unsafe sleep environments, federal regulators now recommend parents and caregivers follow four main points when laying their babies down to sleep:

• Babies should always be placed on their backs to sleep, which greatly reduces the risk of suffocation and sudden infant death syndrome (SUID/SIDS).
• Babies’ sleep spaces should be bare except for a fitted sheet. No pillows, padded crib bumpers, quilts or comforters should be used, in order to avoid suffocation.
• If a baby falls asleep in another nursery item, such as a swing, bouncer or lounger, they should be transferred to firm, flat cribs, bassinets, play yards or bedside sleepers as soon as they are asleep.
• No products with incline angles greater than 10 degrees should ever be used for an infant’s sleep. Children should also never be left in these kinds of products unsupervised, unrestrained or with soft bedding material, again due to suffocation risks.