Nursing pillow safety requirements proposed following infant deaths

Shopper Product Security Fee (CPSC) employees is recommending the primary federal necessities for nursing pillows, following an investigation claiming they’ve resulted in deaths of greater than 100 infants.

Staff suggest that the U-shaped pillows, which mothers use during breastfeeding, be “sufficiently agency that the product is unlikely to evolve to an toddler’s face.”

The proposal comes two weeks after NBC Information reported at the very least 162 infants have died in incidents involving nursing pillows since 2007 — with most of them dying after they have been positioned on or with the pillows to sleep.

The suggestions additionally name for the pillows to have huge sufficient openings to keep away from proscribing a child’s head actions, which might reduce off their airflow.

“As a result of infants regularly go to sleep throughout or after feeding, nursing pillows are foreseeably misused for toddler sleep, which creates a possible hazard for the toddler,” learn the draft pointers, per NBC Information. 

CPSC employees can be pushing for extra outstanding warning labels on the pillows to tell shoppers that the plush merchandise may very well be harmful for infants if left unsupervised, and so they shouldn’t be used for sleeping.

Some of these warnings already seem on the tags of many nursing pillows, however staffers are recommending they be much more seen and tougher to detach from the pillow.

Moreover, the proposal recommends the elimination of straps on nursing pillows, which staffers say leads caregivers to imagine it’s secure to depart younger infants alone within the merchandise.

CPSC employees cited 154 deaths involving nursing pillows from 2010 to 2022, together with from suffocation, asphyxia and sudden toddler demise syndrome.

The newest full knowledge exhibits there have been 38 deaths related to nursing pillows in 2020. 

NBC News claims many of the infants in its rely have been lower than 4 months previous, with the youngest being solely 3 days previous. 

“1000’s of infants die annually of their sleep, and it’s a fable that every one of these deaths are inexplicable,” CPSC Commissioner Richard Trumka Jr. advised the outlet in a press release. “When merchandise contribute to toddler deaths, I imagine it’s CPSC’s obligation to remove that danger.”

CPSC commissioners are anticipated to satisfy on Sept. 13 to resolve if they are going to transfer ahead with the employees’s proposal.

In that case, the general public will have the ability to give suggestions earlier than it’s finalized and takes impact.