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New baby bed standards toughest in world
In June, it became illegal in the U.S. to sell or even donate a crib that fails to meet the toughest crib safety rules in the world.
Continue reading the rest of "New baby bed standards toughest in world" by Athens Banner-Herald
Newly required safety tests are so stringent that few cribs in American homes - even those that have escaped recall after recall - are sturdy enough to pass them. As a result, federal regulators recommend that families that can afford to do so should buy new cribs and destroy their old ones.
"I know times are tough, but I always felt like the price of a crib is minuscule compared to the price of your child's life," said Susan Cirigliano, a Long Island, N.Y., mother who has pushed for tougher standards after her son Bobby died in a defective crib in 2004. "I was a normal mom raising her kids. Never in a million years would I have thought that could happen to me."
Over the past four years, Tribune investigations have reported that a product supposed to be the safest item in the nursery - the one place where a parent can leave an infant unattended for hours - had become a deathtrap for some babies thanks to bad designs, defective hardware and flimsy parts.
Those stories prompted congressional hearings and recalls, and ultimately led to the new standards.
The new rules address all of the major hazards that have killed infants in recent years, including traditional sides that move up and down.
While convenient for parents, those so-called "drop sides" too often broke, creating deadly gaps in which babies got trapped, including Bobby Cirigliano. Drop sides are now forbidden.
The law effectively eliminates the secondhand market for cribs - at least for the near future - because on June 26 it became illegal to sell a crib that fails to meet the new standards. It likely will take more than a year for the new cribs to find their way to garage sales and auction sites as hand-me-downs.
In addition to checking stores that sell new cribs, Scott Wolfson, a spokesman for the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, says his agency will be monitoring eBay, craigslist and other sites to make sure older cribs don't get resold.
Under the new standard, labeling will make it easier to assemble a crib without missing a key step. Many babies died when the sides of their cribs were put on upside down, leaving the beds structurally unsound. The new rules mandate that sides clearly show which way is up or that they function well both ways.
A new battery of tests will better simulate the long life of a crib, finding screws that come loose, mattress supports that separate and slats that break.
Each of those hazards can create a deadly gap that babies' tiny bodies can slip through. When their heads get caught, they can hang to death or otherwise suffocate.
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