The United States consumer products regulatory body decided on Wednesday to advance the first federal safety guidelines for baby rockers, which have been implicated in the deaths of close to a dozen infants.
The suggestion created by its staff and unveiled last month was approved by the Consumer Product Safety Commission with a unanimous vote. The agency made the recommendations after counting 11 fatalities linked to the reclining seats between 2011 and 2022, the majority of which occurred when infants dozed off in them.
The CPSC staff discovered that throughout the course of those 12 years, 88 injuries were also linked to the well-known products. Infants frequently suffered head injuries as a result of rockers tipping over.
The newest suggested regulations are intended to lower the danger of rocker tip-overs, asphyxia, and strangulation. They would demand rockers to pass stability and other safety testing, and to be stronger and flatter to prevent newborns from suffocating. Rockers would also require conspicuous warning labels advising caregivers not to lay soft bedding around newborns within the items or let babies sleep in them.
Alex Hoehn-Saric, chairman of the CPSC, stated at the voting on Wednesday morning, “I believe that this regulation can have an actual effect on the safety of these products.”
Before becoming final, the regulations must be subject to scrutiny and feedback from the public.
Fisher-Price, Kids2, and Béaba, makers of baby rockers, did not immediately respond to calls for comment. Fisher-Price defended its rockers in a letter to Congress last year, which NBC News was able to receive. The company claimed that the rockers were secure as long as parents watched over and controlled their children.
A different producer, 4moms, stated in a statement that it supports the development of a federal safety standard and “looks forward to reviewing and providing comments regarding the proposed rule.” The business claims there have been no instances connected to the newborn rocker, which was recalled due to a potential strangling hazard last year.
Rockers rock babies back and forth either manually or mechanically in order to calm them. Some are calming in nature or vibrating.
Before the vote, CPSC Commissioner Richard Trumka Jr. suggested revising the plan to forbid “the inclusion of soothing characteristics such as vibrations or calming sounds” that might induce sleep in babies and to limit the use of rockers to infants older than 6 months.
Although the idea “tries to make rockers safer to sleeping babies, it does not take steps to discourage children from sleeping in rockers in the first place,” he said.
The three other commissioners opposed Trumka’s change because they believed that the official amendment procedure would cause a delay in the implementation of the safety regulations. Instead, the CPSC decided to request feedback from the general public regarding the safety issues raised by Trumka.
After the CPSC meeting, Cathy Greninger, whose 4-month-old granddaughter Savannah Savage passed away in a Fisher-Price Infant-to-Toddler Rocker in 2019, expressed her happiness that the organization was finally taking action.
The establishment of these safety standards, she noted, had taken a while. “I believe it ought to have been done years ago,”
Savannah passed away at home in Amarillo, Texas, after spending the night rocking, contrary to the manufacturer’s guidelines, which the family was unaware of, according to Greninger. Fisher-Price’s instruction booklet from 2017 stated that the rocker was “not intended for unsupervised or prolonged periods of sleep.”
A forensic pathologist determined that Savannah likely died of positional asphyxia, which can occur when infants are hunched forward or arched backward, obstructing their ventilation, according to a local justice of the peace.
Greninger expressed disappointment that the commissioners decided against including a prohibition on vibrating features even though she was optimistic that the proposed guidelines would save newborns.
So that the newborns don’t fall asleep in them as quickly, she explained, “they need to be prohibited from having the soothers on them.” “Since that’s what they do, you know. They doze off.”
Inquiries about Fisher-Price’s comments on Savannah’s passing went unanswered.
In June 2022, Fisher-Price and the CPSC jointly issued a warning stating that 13 infant deaths had occurred between 2009 and 2021 in the company’s Infant-to-Toddler and Newborn-to-Toddler rockers. In the same month, the CPSC also issued a warning on a different manufacturer, Kids2, stating that one infant had perished in its Bright Starts rocker. Both warnings forbade sleeping on rockers, swings, and other inclined chairs.
In a letter to Congress sent last year, Fisher-Price said that at least 11 of the 13 instances involved newborns being left unattended and that at least six of those incidents had the infants’ rockers not being securely fastened.
Different from inclined sleepers such as the Fisher-Price Rock ‘n Play, which was recalled in 2019 and is thought to be responsible for roughly 100 fatalities, rockers are designed to rock the user.
Trumka noted at the meeting on Wednesday that both products put babies on an inclined surface, which research suggests may increase their risk of asphyxia. The general public will be invited to weigh in on whether rockers should be more upright to keep babies awake or more level to make them safer if babies fall asleep.