The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) officially banned manufacturing, sale, and resale on all drop-side cribs today. Laws will go in place June 2011. These cribs, with movable sides that come down to make it easier to place your baby or toddler in the crib, have been under scrutiny for years due to safety concerns. Previous CPSC warnings and recalls have been loudly amplified in the media. Many parents have had concerns.
Here is a nice summary of the announcement. If you have a crib with moving or drop-sides, check out these suggestions for ensuring your crib is safe by doing routine checks. Ensure the crib isn’t wobbly, that joints for the sides of the crib are secure, that there is not excess space between the mattress and the side of the crib (no more than 2 fingers should fit), and that parts are intact and unbroken. If any parts are broken, replace parts by following manufacturer recommendations by looking online at their site or calling the company who made the crib.
This is another great step in protecting our children. What’s your experience with drop-side cribs? Have any of you had experiences raising concerns while using them?
Here’s additional tips from the AAP on choosing a crib (hasn’t been updated to include today’s information).
(And yes, I look like I’m attacking the screen or eager to eat a large drumstick in the still above; I know. No comments necessary :-))
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HereWeGoAJen says
Does anyone know if this affects cribs that were recalled? Our crib was one of the ones recalled in the giant recall in June, so now it is retrofitted with the little bar things to keep the drop rail from dropping. Not that I am necessarily planning on reselling it, but I am just wondering if it is exempt from the new law because it isn’t technically a drop rail anymore.
Elizabeth says
I’m not a fan of this decision. If we didn’t have a drop-side crib, we would have had to move our toddler to a regular bed already, because I cannot lift him over the side of the crib and lay him down safely with it up (36 lb kid and a bad back). 30 deaths sounds like a lot, but that’s over ten years, with tens of millions of these cribs in use. There probably weren’t any parent *deaths* during that period of time, but how many parental injuries were there associated with fixed-side cribs? For that matter, how many children were injured because they got out of a bed that they were moved into early, because it was too difficult to get them in and out of the crib?
The odds of your child being struck by lightning in a given year are greater than the odds of them being killed by their crib.
I’m all in favor of people being told about the dangers of these cribs so they can make an informed judgment on whether to buy them, but taking them off the market seems needlessly paranoid.
Wendy Sue Swanson, MD says
The difference is that these deaths are preventable. Lightening strikes may not be. If we can prevent 30 deaths in well infants and toddlers, we must work to do so.
Further, if you have a drop-side crib that is well assembled, without any issues with broken parts and in good condition, the CPSC is not saying you have to throw out the crib. This ban for the future manufacturing serves as a good reminder to check stability of the crib regularly and make sure there is no extra space between the mattress and the drop-side.
Viki says
We have a drop-sided crib we got used for about $50 from a couple at church. No recalls on this brand or model that we could find. The crib is light weight. When my sweet, demure daughter was 22 months she took to jumping in bed and rattling that drop side with all her might. She was fierce! She’d get a foot of air. We’re astounded that she didn’t push the side drop-down (and go flying face-first out the crib). She did get ALL the hardware loose. We put her in a twin bed w/ a rail the next day. The rail was only high enough to prevent her from rolling off in her sleep. She stayed put because she was afraid of falling 18 inches. One of those satisfying moments in parents. 🙂
My son is now 22 months, in the same crib. He’s a little brute by day, but wasn’t abusing the crib so much. However, he and his sister will try to climb in there to play. Many drop-sided cribs are also lightweight. My two kids can definitely move the crib and can make it rock if they both hang off the same side. I think when a toddler start misbehaving in their crib, it’s best to move them out. They will find other hazards!
Becky (Nelson) Hunter says
Glad to see a decision made to bolster the safety of our children! Will be interesting to see how much back injuries increase in parents of young children. 🙂
Wendy Sue Swanson, MD says
@HerewegoaJen,
You won’t be able to sell it your crib in the future because it is a drop-side crib. It’s safe to use now but come June 2011 you wouldn’t be allowed to sell it in a co-op or resale store. Great that you retrofit it–does it feel very steady? Do you think a strong toddler could move the sides?
We had a drop side crib for our second son that was from friends who had used it for years with both of their children. The drop side wasn’t all that stable. We’d followed the directions for assembly (which seriously took us about 4 hours) and it still had some play when you shook it. We ended up only using it until O was about 8 1/2 months old because I was so worried he’d push the side down once he learned to pull to stand and go tumbling out of the crib. I remember talking with my husband about putting nails in it to stabilize the side because I was so worried. This CLEARLY would have been the wrong thing to do now that I’ve read these reports. I didn’t know anything about these concerns with re-fixes and the increased danger of entrapment/strangulation at the time. These reports this last year & this ban certainly are instructive. Even as a pediatrician, I wasn’t aware how dangerous that crib could have been.
Certainly many drop-side cribs are sturdy, well assembled, and very safe. Parents who are shorter or have back issues can still find great solutions. The re-checks are the way to help us all rest easier when using drop-side cribs. Clearly the crib we had was not a crib we should have been using!
Jeremy Fritts says
I contacted Pottery Barn on our drop-side crib, and they sent me a hardware kit to convert it to a fixed side crib for free!
Amy says
We got two drop side cribs, one for each twin, when they were born, almost two years ago. One was new and was affected by a recall—it now has the metal piece preventing the side from dropping, so I’m confident that it is safe. The other crib we got from a friend—it’s an older model, but much better quality—the drop mechanism is hidden in the frame, and it’s metal, not plastic. We have not been able to find any recalls on it, so we are continuing to use it as is though we don’t generally drop the side down anymore anyway.
We expect to switch the boys to beds sometime in the next year, but since they aren’t quite 2, and haven’t climbed out of their cribs, we thought leaving them in there for now is better. They aren’t too hard on the cribs for the most part. I suppose that with this ban, the newer crib especially, is basically kindling when we’re done with it. I was going to see if my sister wants the other one for when she has a baby, but maybe that’s not ethical? I know I couldn’t resell it though consignment, but giving it away, if there is a willing recipient who understands that it’s basically black market…is that ok?
Elizabeth says
Another contrary view: https://freerangekids.wordpress.com/2010/12/17/some-non-mainstream-thoughts-on-the-crib-recall/
Also, I just saw on a parenting messageboard a post by a parent who was worried about drop-side cribs not being safe in light of the ban. Her husband had solved the problem by securing the drop side with zip ties at the top so it couldn’t be lowered. Of course, that does absolutely nothing to mitigate the actual entrapment risk – depending on how the ties are installed, it might actually make it worse. But “drop sides are unsafe,” so now she thinks the crib is “safe,” and doesn’t want to listen to any statement to the contrary.
Dr. Swanson, I understand that you don’t agree with me on this, and I am not trying to be difficult with you, but I’m curious – what other styles of crib do you think *are* safe for a short or disabled parent?
Wendy Sue Swanson, MD says
Elizabeth,
We do differ on this. As a pediatrician who has witnessed and been a part of caring for children after traumatic events and accidental death, I just won’t budge on this.
And this really isn’t about trying to scare…
Just as I don’t entirely agree with Lenore Skenazy’s take, I can’t imagine that we should stop and believe cribs should be and “ARE pretty safe,” as she suggests. I believe all cribs should be equally safe. I really like her blog and her goals. I agree that we’re being set up to: “Worry about every possible, if extremely unlikely, thing that COULD go wrong,” and that we parents are made to, “spend your days ACTIVELY trying to prevent them all.”
I believe this is different. The epidemiology and stats she poses are unfair and misdirecting. Although she credits (after she posits the stats) that the the death rates she mentions don’t represent the same two groups (all ages versus infants AND toddlers) she still uses the numbers to persuade. This isn’t an accurate or responsible way to represent death rates and make decisions.
Numbers appeal to a different part of our brain; they drive points home emotionally. When I read her blog, her numbers swayed me, too. But the groups are incomparable. And the numbers out of context. It isn’t outrageous to ban a product that can lead to accidental death in children. This really isn’t like banning a bouncing ball as she suggests.
Preventable deaths are preventable. As a pediatrician, my job is to help families create safe spaces for kids to grow up, play, and roam freely. For families with health concerns and disability, other options do exist (from pack N play type bedding (lower to the ground) and disability cribs. Our jobs over time will be to help support families find functional solutions.
This is not hysteria from the government. I believe this decision has been made with significant care, thought, and time. I’m not privy to CPSC decision-making (clearly!) and am not an epidemiologist or safety expert. I put my trust in those experts who are.
Julia says
I was completely unaware of this ban until I said to a friend with a 6- month old (she’s trying to teach him to sleep in his own bed) “What we did was instead of picking our baby up out of the crib when she cried was to drop down the side and rub her back/snuggle with her while she was in her crib so she learned it was a safe place where she was loved and cared for and not an isolating, lonely place …” to which my friend said, “Oh no! Drop down cribs have been banned! That idea won’t work!”
So, having not researched why they were banned I’m assuming it was probably for a good reason (and not just because people were using them improperly). We never had a problem with ours. But we only used a crib until our daughter was 18 months old because she started trying to climb *into* the crib and I was afraid she’d hurt herself so we got her a toddler bed so she could be master of her own sleep destiny. It sure was convenient for us though, not just with helping her learn to feel safe sleeping in her crib, but also because I have rheumatoid arthritis and had a very severe flare-up after she was born and it helped me when I was having trouble physically functioning.
Viki says
Elizabeth, there are ADA-approved cribs for those with disabilities. They don’t have drop sides, but rather a gate that opens on the side of the crib to allow reach without lifting over the rail. The base of the crib is also stronger so that a wheel chair bound person may sit on the mattress and tend to the baby.
Short stature is different from disability of course. There are many lower profile cribs out there, like the IKEA Gulliver (https://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/00116005). It’s 32 inches high (just over 2.5 ft). It’s very popular among shorter statured mommies, though few mommies are both short and have severe back injuries.
Becky says
I think the deaths would be a good reason to put out safety warnings, or to have more stringent safety guidelines, but I agree that 3 deaths a year are not a reason to fully ban a product. Many of these deaths involved improperly assembled cribs, for instance. We also haven’t banned bicycles, which I’m sure are responsible for far more deaths per year than a drop side on a crib.
We have a fixed side crib, because it seemed so much sturdier than the drop side ones. I want to point out that most fixed side cribs aren’t just like drop side cribs, but with unmovable sides. The crib we have has much shorter legs, the overall profile is much lower and the mattress is nearer to the ground on its lowest setting. I’ve never had any trouble getting baby in or out.
Elizabeth says
I can certainly agree to disagree on the appropriateness of this ban. (I wish they had published more information on how the decision was arrived at. In particular, I wonder whether they considered injuries to adults at all, or if only injuries to children “counted” in their analysis. I also wondered how much they considered second-order behavior changes that would go along with the change, like putting kids into beds earlier or trying to jury-rig cribs.)
I’m also not going to defend Lenore’s comparison statistics. But the statement that, “Numbers appeal to a different part of our brain; they drive points home emotionally,” cracks me up. Numbers are the antidote to driving home points emotionally. They are how we refute the vaccines-give-kids-autism crackpots. What drives points home emotionally is that picture of a doll with its head trapped in a crib that goes along with the articles, to make people fear that the same thing will happen to their own child.
Wendy Sue Swanson, MD says
I wasn’t trying to be funny. I think for some, numbers are very evocative and emotional. I wasn’t kidding and I stand by what I said.
In my experience in the office, this is true. Patients often want “odds” and data to help them understand. They want to put decisions in context. But I don’t experience that data always functions as an antidote to anecdote. Data too, can inspire emotion. I believe people experience numbers differently due to all sorts of reasons (background, profession, comfort w statistics, education level, etc).
Research and “evidence-based” medicine help guide physicians how to counsel families and help patients make decisions. But numbers are not devoid of emotion. In my experience in helping families under risk and benefit from different treatment decisions, I have had the opposite experience with numbers. Data or numbers are influential and ultimately emotional. For some, numbers can really remain…
For example, If I say, “1 in 10 children will have fever after this shot,” some parents are really influenced by that. Others may respond differently to “90% of children don’t have fever after this shot.” To say those 2 equivalent statements aren’t differing in the emotion they inspire, is not my experience. And those are just numbers…
Kathy says
I don’t get why some people are so “upset” that these cribs are being banned. Are you also upset that cars like the Pinto https://www.armstrongforensic.com/blog/index.php/2010/03/01/four-famous-automotive-recalls/ have been recalled (basically banned) because they caused accidental death and injury that could have been prevented (had drivers chosen another vehicle) ?
There have been countless toys and car seats recalled for safety reasons. Do those opposed to this ban on drop-side cribs also think these toys and car seats should have remained available to the masses? Is just a few deaths okay, but many hundreds of deaths is the tipping point? https://www.forbes.com/2007/09/14/toys-safety-congress-biz-manufacturing-cx_tvr_0917dangeroustoys.html
As others have pointed out, there are safer alternatives than drop-side cribs available. I’m 5’4″ and in 2004 when we were about to become parents, we chose a crib that had no movable parts – simply because I’d HEARD back then that the drop-side cribs were not the safest option. Admittedly, I don’t live with chronic back pain, but I also didn’t develop chronic back pain from having that crib.
Heather says
Interesting…I wonder how many years it will take before they make a recall on the new safer products?!
I think we’ll just start sleeping on the floor on a camping pad! 😉
Christne Russo says
Amen! to your comment about the cribs. I have the Rolls Royce of cribs with 2 drop sides, all metal parts down to the floor. No chance that it could break or separate from the crib and I can’t sell it. When they are finished with the crib changes they’ll start making us put our kids in cages. All the cribs will be recalled and we’ll be buying kennels!
Heather says
Great clear advice on what to do if you have a drop-side crib in terms of checking its current safety!
Sabrina says
I have a question I cannot find the answer to anywhere online. Question:
If I have a crib with a drop down side, and I “test” it as you say in your video above and consider it safe, then does this mean that I have to throw it away when June of 2011 arrives? Will I get in trouble by the government or DHS for using one? The one we have has not had an individual recall.
Wendy Sue Swanson, MD says
Absolutely not. You don’t have to dispose of cribs at that time. You can use it personally for your children after that date, you just couldn’t use it commercially (if you ran a day care or hotel, for example).
Karen says
Another question…if we have a drop side crib that our daughter has grown out of, do we have any way to get rid of it other than take it to the dump? It seems like such a waste to me
Sabrina Parcher says
Thank you so much for answering my question above – this has been the most helpful place for me to find all the information beyond the fact that a ban has occurred.
Ann says
We are expecting our first grandchild in June. We also have the same dropside crib our four sons used. You can imagine the wear and tear that four boys could do but we never had any issues with the drop side. My daughter-in-law says it’s unacceptable to use. We have offered to fix it so the side wouldn’t drop but still not acceptable. This crib is 33yrs old and all the parts including the slides are metal. I haven’t not heard what the danger is in these cribs…does the side drop by itself or what. I certainly would never put a child in something dangerous but what’s different with todays kids than our own way back when? Obviously we won’t use it if she doesn’t want us to. My friends and I always laugh and wonder how any of us are even alive since nearly everything our parents did is wrong today!
Thanks
Wendy Sue Swanson, MD says
Well, Ann, I have no idea the condition of the crib. But I’d say to keep things safe and to avoid regret and frustration with your daughter-in-law, you respect her wishes. It’s her job to protect her child and it sounds like she is acting like a mother! Celebrate her concern and her advocacy. Consider purchasing a pack and play that could be used in more than one situation or a used fixed-sided crib if necessary. And yes, we’re all fortunate to survive childhood, it seems! But you’re just picking up on the differences of raising children in the 21st century…it seems it would have been much less nerve-racking before without the internet and all these OPINIONS everywhere. The hope is that progress, and science, actually saves lives. Just hard to notice it in our worlds because the numbers of the people we know just don’t reflect what epidemiology has to hold…
Jen says
I believe that if a parent is knowledgable on HOW to put their drop down crib together, especially ones not involved in the recall, than there should be no issues a lot of these im sure are because parents are thinking that they are putting their crib together correctly and they arent. this is just my opinion – i have ALWAYS had drop down cribs, i have three children – so for the past 6 years i have had drop down cribs, neither one of them have EVER come lose, or anything, they were put together right.
thats just my opinion.
thanks!
Christne Russo says
I feel compelled to share with all of you that that the loss of a total of 18 children in the last nearly 20 years,(due to drop side cribs) out of the millions born in this country should not have required a ban on drop sided cribs at a cost of $550 million dollars. 10 times as many babies die each year of spider bites and millions more are aborted. The chance of any infant death due to a drop side crib accident is less than 1 in 5 million a year. The CPSC didn’t create the ban because they care about babies. They care about power and the crib manufacturers didn’t complain because it meant billions to them in replacement cribs. Case in point, 16 oz drinks outlawed in New York. Now, if you want 16 ozs of anything you have to buy two!
It’s about Money and Power, not Safety