News Moms Need

This recall involves marble-sized toys that absorb water and grow up to 400 times their original size. Due to risks associated with swallowing these toys, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission and Health Canada, in cooperation with Dunecraft, Inc., announced a voluntary recall of the following consumer products: Water Balz, Growing Skulls, H2O Orbs “Despicable Me” and Fabulous Flowers toys.

When the marble-sized toy is ingested, it expands inside the body and causes a blockage in the small intestine, resulting in severe discomfort, vomiting, dehydration and could be life threatening. The toys do not show up on an x-ray and require surgery to be removed from the body.

Consumers should immediately take this recalled toy away from children and contact Dunecraft at (800) 306-4168, from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. ET Monday through Friday, or online at www.dunecraft.com, for a free replacement toy. For more information and pictures of the items, read the complete CPSC recall statement.

Are you taking the kids to visit Grandma and Grandpa this summer? Are you going on a vacation that requires air travel? As the summer travel season begins, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has launched an education effort to help parents and caregivers make informed choices about their child’s safety when they fly. 

The FAA has developed a new web site and online toolkit with information about how to keep children safe when traveling by air.  The site includes a downloadable tip sheet for parents and caregivers and a video demonstration on how to properly install a child safety seat on an airplane.  Details about FAA-approved child harness devices and links to frequently asked questions also are included on the web site.  Click on this link for more information.    Check out the new web site at http://www.faa.gov/passengers/fly_children/.

What are you doing on Saturday? September 18-24 is Child Passenger Safety Week.  Parents and caregivers are urged to have their children’s car seats checked on National Seat Check Saturday, September 24.  Certified child passenger safety technicians will be available to inspect car seats and provide hands-on advice free of charge. Car seat safety is critical.   If you have had a premature baby, make sure you read these special recommendations. 

To find information on the car seat law in your state, read new car seat recommendations for children, or locate a child seat safety inspection station near you, click on this link to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.  Show up on Saturday and get it checked out. You’ll be glad you did.

Despite years of preventive steps and educational campaigns, pharmaceutical poisoning remains a common childhood injury. A new study recently published in The Journal of Pediatrics attempts to understand the growing problem of childhood injuries due to pharmaceutical poisoning. Hopefully, the results will help reduce the number of future injuries.

Dr. Randall Bond and colleagues from Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center and the University of Cincinnati gathered information on over half a million children up to the age of five who had visited the emergency department (ED) because they may have been poisoned by medication. 

The authors found that 95% of these ED visits resulted from children getting their hands on medications and eating them.  Prescription drugs accounted for 55% of the ED visits, 76% of hospital admissions, and 71% of significant injuries.  The biggest impact came from opioid-containing pain medications (eg, oxycodone, morphine, codeine), sedative hypnotics (eg, muscle relaxants, sleep aids), and cardiovascular medications.  “The problem of pediatric poisoning in the U.S. is getting worse, not better,” Dr. Bond asserts. 

The problem seems to stem from a greater availability of and access to medications in the child’s home. This study shows how vitally important it is for parents and caregivers to store medicines in locked cabinets or up and out of reach from children. We need to pay attention!

While taking greater precautions at home are essential, the authors believe that the “largest potential benefit would come from packaging design changes that reduce the quantity a child could quickly and easily access in a self-ingestion episode, like flow restrictors on liquids and one-at-a-time tablet dispensing containers.” These should apply to meds for both adults and children, prescription and over-the-counter.

This looks like a great opportunity for product engineers.

When it comes to babies in your Buick, or whatever you drive, backwards is best. Infants under 1 year should always ride in a rear-facing car seat in the back seat of your car. As tempting as it may be at times (Jr. is wailing and turning blue, and you’re only 5 minutes from home and someone else is driving and you’ll get in the back seat, too…) never ride with your child in your lap. Always use a car seat. It’s best to put your baby’s car seat in the middle of the back seat, away from passenger-side airbags.
 
Here’s a link to some great car seat safety info.  Shopping Tips tell you what to look for when you buy an infant car seat. Safety Tips tell how to use an infant car seat. If you want to make sure you have installed your seat correctly (and, BTW, most of us don’t), there are child seat safety inspectors available to help! (Who knew?) 

When choosing a car safety seat for your preemie or low-birthweight baby, there may be more issues to think about. Keep these tips in mind.

I read about a tragic heat-related accident in the news a few years ago and wrote a post about it. The hellacious heat that has been baking the entire country this past week compels me to share my thoughts once again.
 
Many youngsters are accidentally killed by being left in cars during peak summer months. It takes very little time for a car to become an oven in the hot summer sun. Children can die from the physical stress of heat exposure. These accidents usually happen to otherwise responsible, educated, well-intentioned parents or care providers and not careless slackers. I bring this up not to enter into the “good parent” vs “bad parent” debate, but rather to point out how important it is to be extra aware of exactly where you little ones are at this time of year.
 
We’re all way too busy, overly stressed, usually tired… but we need to pay strict attention. Here are some suggestions for making sure this tragedy doesn’t happen in your family:
• Keep your child’s snowsuit (or something else unusually noticable) in her car seat when she is not in it. When your child is in the car, put the snowsuit in the front seat next to you. It will look odd and remind you that she is in the back.
• When you get in the car, put your purse, briefcase, backpack, whatever you carry in the back seat. When you open the door to take it out, you’ll take the baby with you.
• Keep a pacifier in the car and put it over your keychain whenever you drive with your child. It will remind you when you turn off the engine to take the quiet, sleeping baby with you.
• Just as you have learned to put on your seatbelt every time you get in the car, train yourself when you get out to walk around the car and look in the back windows, or open and shut every door of the car if your windows are tinted dark.
• Create a checklist to give to grandparents and babysitters and make distributing it to those who drive standard operating procedure in your family.

What other suggestions do you have?

The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) is urging consumers to stop using clip-on table-top chairs manufactured by phil&teds USA Inc. due to risk of serious injury due to multiple safety hazards.  This caught my attention because we use one of these chairs for our grandchildren.

The “metoo” infant/toddler chair has a nylon fabric seat and a metal frame that clamps onto tables using two metal vise clamps.  The upper part of each clamp rests on the table top and has either a rubber clamp pad on its underside or a rubber boot covering.  Chairs affected by this warning do not have plastic spacers between the table clamps and the front horizontal metal bar.  Chairs with plastic spacers between the table clamps and the front horizontal metal bar are under evaluation.  The “metoo” chairs have been sold since May 2006 through phil&teds.com, Amazon.com, Buy Buy Baby, Target, ToysRUs and other retailers. 

According to CPSC, the affected “metoo” chairs pose serious fall and amputation hazards to children.  Children can suffer impact and head injuries when the chair  detaches from the table and falls with them in it, and CPSC staff are aware of numerous incidents involving the chairs.  Phil&teds has refused to agree to a national recall of their product that is acceptable to CPSC, and has offered a repair kit consisting of rubber boots to place on the upper clamp grips of the chairs.  CPSC has not approved a repair kit for this product.  For more information about the recall, click on this link.

To improve the safety of toddler beds, the US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) has approved a new mandatory standard.  The new federal standard requires the following:  the top edge of the bed’s guardrail must be at least five inches above the surface of the mattress; spindle/slat strength testing for toddler beds must be consistent with the testing required for crib spindles/slats; and separate warning labels to address entrapment and strangulation hazards must appear on toddler beds.  Cribs that convert into toddler beds must also comply with the new federal standard.

Congress, as part of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008, required the Commission to issue a mandatory standard for toddler beds, as well as other durable infant and toddler products. In addition to toddler beds, CPSC has issued mandatory standards for cribs, infant walkers and infant bath seats. You can obtain recall and general safety information by logging on to CPSC’s Web site.

Before you get back out on the paths in the park to jog with your little one, note that a recall of jogging strollers has been issued.  Be sure to check your wheels before heading out.

B.O.B. Trailers, Inc. has recalled about 337,000 B.O.B.® single and double strollers. A drawstring on the stroller can get wrapped around a child’s neck, posing a strangulation hazard. The recall involves eleven different models. They were sold at REI, buy buy Baby and other stores nationwide and on the Web at Babiesrus.com, Target.com and Amazon.com between April 2002 and February 2011. Consumers should immediately stop using the recalled strollers and remove the drawstring. If using a separately purchased Weather Shield or Sun Shield accessory with the recalled stroller, contact B.O.B. Trailers for a free canopy retrofit kit. Click on this link for model numbers and further information.

This year we posted numerous recalls on drop-side cribs.  The U.S. Product Safety Commission (CPSC) Chairman Inez Tenenbaum, U.S. senators and a parent whose child died from a faulty crib announced on December 15th that the CPSC has approved new federal rules to end dangerous, traditional drop-side cribs.  The new federal crib standards, set to take effect in June, would stop the sale, re-sale, manufacture, and distribution of drop-side cribs and would also prohibit drop-side cribs at motels, hotels and childcare facilities. Drop side cribs have resulted in the deaths of at least 32 infants since 2001.

CPSC’s new federal standards will also make mattress supports stronger, crib hardware sturdier and compliance testing more rigorous.  This is the first time in nearly 30 years that federal crib standards have been updated.