Will banning crib bumpers decrease infant deaths, injuries?

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Most parents ensure the safety and comfort of their precious babies by purchasing crib bumpers. But, contrary to their perceived purpose, these bedding accessories could be doing more harm than good.

"Crib bumpers are killing kids," said senior author Bradley T. Thach, MD, a professor emeritus of pediatrics at the School of Medicine and the author of a landmark study published in 2007 that first documented crib-bumper deaths. "Bumpers are more dangerous than we originally thought. The infant deaths we studied could have been prevented if the cribs were empty."

Findings of the new study suggest that the number of infant deaths and injuries attributed to crib bumpers has significantly increased in recent years, according to a EurekAlert news release.

The researchers even went so far as to call for a nationwide ban on the crib bumpers and they are not the first to ask for the prohibition. The American Academy of Pediatrics, Canadian Pediatric Society, the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have recommended against the use of crib bumpers.

Thach added that a ban on crib bumpers would reinforce the message that no soft bedding of any kind should be placed inside a baby's crib. He believes that there is one sure-fire way to prevent infant deaths from crib bumpers and that is by not using one.

The problem, however, is that only the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) has the power to institute a U.S. ban, which according to researchers is an agency that is too small, underfunded, with limited resources and has other priorities.

Nowadays, these crib bumpers are still very popular, especially, among those expecting parents who see bumpers in store displays, magazines, and catalogues featuring high-end celebrity nurseries.

The researchers found that there had been 23 deaths related to crib bumpers reported to the CPSC for the seven-year period between 2006 and 2012, which is close to three times higher than the average during each of the three previous seven-year spans. There were eight deaths tied to the use of crib bumpers reported to CPSC prior to 2006, Yahoo reported.

Lead author N.J. Scheers, PhD, former manager of CPSC's Infant Suffocation Project, explained that when a baby's nose and mouth is covered by a bumper, the infant can suffocate when his or her airway becomes blocked, or from breathing oxygen-depleted air. He said that if these bumpers had not been in the cribs, the babies would not have died.