Washington, D.C. – “As leading child health and consumer advocacy organizations, we are proud to support H.R.3170 and S.1816, the Safe Cribs Act. For almost a decade our organizations have warned parents against using crib bumper pads and supported state and local actions to ban their sale. This legislation would help prevent more families from experiencing the tragedy of losing a child to crib bumper pads by banning their manufacture, import, and sale altogether.

Crib bumper pads are dangerous. Dozens of deaths have been attributed to positional asphyxia or suffocation involving these products. But they still appear on store shelves where new parents or grandparents assume they are safe – in fact many assume they are a safety product – and end up making their child’s sleep space dangerous.  The safest sleeping environment for infants is always on their back, on a separate, flat and firm sleep surface without any bumpers or bedding.

Together, we urge Congress to advance the Safe Cribs Act without delay and thank Representative Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) and Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) for their leadership on this safety issue and many others. We also call on the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission to immediately call on retailers and manufacturers to stop selling bumper pads, as they did for a similar product, infant sleep positioners. There is no question: crib bumper pads are dangerous, and have no place in a safe sleep environment or on store shelves."

Contacts:

Rachel Weintraub, 202-939-1012, Consumer Federation of America

Jamie Poslosky, 202-724-3301, and Devin Miller, 202-724-3308, American Academy of Pediatrics

David Butler, 202-719-5916, Consumer Reports

Nancy Cowles, 312-595-0649, Kids In Danger