Deadly, Recalled Sleepers at Daycare Facilities

Deadly recalled sleepers

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Someone got the message a day too late. In April of 2019, Fisher-Price recalled 4.7 million Rock n’ Play inclined sleeper devices after an investigative report published by Consumer Reports connected inclined sleepers to at least 32 infant deaths. However, daycare facilities continued to use the inclined sleepers after the recall, according to a report appearing in N.Y. Times. In fact, one out of every ten daycare facilities who care for infants younger than one-year-old admitted they were still using inclined sleepers despite the inherent danger they presented. Shockingly, the facilities which continued to use inclined sleepers admitted that they did not know about the recall, nor did they know of the dangers inclined sleepers presented to children.

A pediatrician called the persistent use of inclined sleepers at childcare facilities a “nightmare” scenario. The pediatrician said that he expects additional children to die after being set down in an inclined sleeper. The pediatrician believes that inclined sleepers cannot be used in any manner safely. Additionally, the pediatrician said that the danger to small children would persist for a long time because the consumer market was flooded with inclined sleepers, and getting them out of people’s homes will take “decades.”

Fisher-Price marketed inclined sleepers as a convenient and safe alternative to allow small children to sleep. At the same time, parents, sleep-deprived themselves, could attend to things they needed to do. However, decades of study and investigation revealed that babies need to sleep in their cribs, on their backs, while on a firm surface, without any other items like pillows and blankets. Researchers say that adding anything to a crib is potentially life-threatening to an infant.

Fisher-Price’s Rock n’ Play design fails to keep children safe because the child is at an incline, not free of soft items, and the sleeper is soft rather than firm.