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Thursday, December 6, 2012

Death Trap

Maryland, the state that I live in, will be the first state starting January of 2013 to ban the sale of crib bumpers. You know those super cute bumpers with the little ties to hold them around the crib, well not no more. 

They are claiming that there were too many reported infant deaths with the bumpers being the leading cause. I'm not exactly sure how I feel about all of this. Now don't get me wrong, I do realize very unfortunate things happen to babies that are not at all preventable... however. like many of the other bans and recalls placed on infant items, much of it seems like an unsupervised case. 

Such as the bumbo seats.... of course your kid will tip them over and fall off of the TABLE and onto the FLOOR... why the heck did you place them on the table and then WALK AWAY to begin with? 

Some of this seems strange to me. In fact my daughter still has bumpers in her crib, yes I know, I know.. she is 2 but, she has not tried to climb out, so why fix whats not broken, she loves her crib, and I know where she is. That crib still has bumpers in it, now before you call CPA on my, and tell them I am a terrible mother... she has woken up many times, with nasty indents from the bars during the times I took them off, she also use to stick limbs through the bars, when the bumpers are on she does not... 

When she was an infant, she was in a sleep positioner on her side until she could roll over around 4 months, and at that point there were bumpers up too, in fact come to think of it, I think the positioner has been recalled as well. 

Then when she got bigger, cover your eyes.. I dd let her sleep on her belly... Her pedi recommended it for the severe reflux that she had, and she slept way better like that, still sleeps on her belly, anyway.. she had bumpers then too, I raised them so there was a good inch of space at the bottom, so "IF" she did push up against them, there was breathing room underneath. I also closely monitored her on the video monitor. 

Now I say all of the that, to ask... what things do you still find useful, that the majority has labeled as unsafe, and do you think they are in fact unsafe. For instance the positioner... Yes, it was recalled, yes I kept it, we would have been in some trouble without it. I had a baby who had dealt with severe reflux, the kind that kept her hospitalized for dehydration after she stopped nursing because the reflux was so painful, anyway.. without the positioner to keep her up on her side, she would have (while laying on her back) refluxed and then aspirated, and then that combination would have ended horribly.  

However I was given a johnny jump up the kind that hands in the doorway, the kind that was recalled b/c to many babies flipped over and hung.. again I feel like if a parent was around they would not have hung upside down for that long of time, but on the other hand.. I felt that they were too unsafe to use, since they could be flipped and then baby would fall out. But, I still have lots of friends that use them and do not pose a safety risk. I also think it was great that dropside cribs were recalled and completely understood the reason, lots of people still use them though. 




4 comments:

Hillary said...

Amen! It seems like every baby product on the market is recalled these days because of a few stupid parents who ruin it for the rest of us. We don't have bumpers on our crib so I can't speak to that, but we do still have a few products that have been recalled (like the Bumbo)-- we just actually WATCH our kid when he uses them. Too bad you can't recall bad parents. ;)

Perfectly Imperfect said...

we used bumpers, the positioner, the bumbo, and the johnny jump up. worst parents ever! ;) however, bg was never alone in the bumbo or the johnny jump up. and the other two? were totally necessary for my crazy kid!

Shannon Dew said...

KP has had bumpers since day 1,still does, and she's still in her crib too. I have no intentions of taking her out till absolutely necessary!

Lucy Marie said...

Other than the positioner we have used/use every single product on that list. Also, shhh ... Eva slept on her tummy since she was 10 weeks old and G has since she was (GASP), 2.5 weeks old.