Yet group is trying to decide if the popular nursery product poses suffocation risks
 Michelle Bobinski's infant son, Tyler Baker, died in 2007. The Wenona, Ill., boy was found at his sitter's home with his face in a crib bumper pad. “I’d never heard about a child suffocating on anything in a crib,” Bobinski said. (Scott Strazzante, Chicago Tribune / March 29, 2011) |
The nanny checked on Madison Morr twice during her afternoon nap. The second time, Madison's skin was blue — her face was pressed against the bumper pad that lined the inside of her crib.
A medical examiner found the 5-month-old baby had suffocated, and federal regulators received a death certificate that said she had been trapped against padding in the corner of the crib.
Yet those regulators never examined whether Madison's death involved an unsafe product.
The baby's death in 2006 is one of at least 17 cases where the Consumer Product Safety Commission did not investigate a child's death, even though the agency had reports on file suggesting bumper pads played roles in the fatalities, the Tribune found.
The Tribune looked into some of the cases and found that medical examiners and coroners said bumper pads were involved in the suffocations.
Now the safety agency is in the midst of trying to decide if the popular nursery products are safe, yet is doing so without having investigated all deaths that involved bumpers, which tie around crib slats.
The agency has been hesitant to take a stand on the products' safety despite warnings from the American Academy of Pediatrics and other groups urging parents not to use bumpers because they present a suffocation risk.
