It's Official: Drop-Side Baby Cribs Have Been Outlawed
The drop-side crib has been outlawed.
An icon of babyhood has been kicked to the curb. Drop-side baby cribs, which have brought 30 babies to their death in the last decade, were outlawed yesterday.
By a unanimous vote, the Consumer Product Safety Commission banned the manufacture, sale and resale of cribs that have a movable side.
This is good news for expectant parents — they can make plans to get an approved crib. But the ban leaves parents on their last months of crib-use needing to decide what’s best to do.
The Los Angeles Times explains that the drop-side was a feature that allowed parents to more easily reach infants and young children sleeping in the cribs, which had mattresses low enough to keep them from rolling and, eventually, climbing out.
But over the past decade, dozens of infants and toddlers have become trapped when the drop side separated from the rest of the crib and millions have been recalled in the last few years.
Now that the drop side has been outlawed, all cribs must now have fixed sides — a requirement that will go into place in June 2011. Hotels and childcare centers are also prohibited from using drop-side cribs, though the CPSC is giving them a year to replace their gear.
The agency is also requiring better testing of newly cribs requiring product safety inspectors to apply force to the bottoms and sides of cribs that mimic older babies and toddlers in the cribs.
Some 9 million cribs have been recalled over the last 10 years after more and more deaths were reported due to detaching parts in the drop side, which allowed a V-shaped opening for a child’s neck to slip into.
We own a hand-me-down drop-side crib, which my now 2-year-0ld (and very last) child is still sleeping in. Indeed, it’s on the slightly rickety side and the plan had always been to toss it in the trash once he moved into a bed. Last night, after reading about the ban, we went in and reinforced with duct tape the top and bottom corners at every point where one side met another (including the non-drop-side). It’s a step that we’re comfortable with. Like a lot of people, we aren’t going to buy a new crib just to use for a few months and this seemed the best strategy for us and the safety of our son.
Do you have a drop-side? What will you do in light of this latest safety measure?
We have one that we were stuck with – buying a new crib simply wasn’t in the financial cards, Simplicity is “out of business”, the store wouldn’t take it back, etc. 4″ screws. 16 of them. That crib simply isn’t going to come apart now.
I think it would have been a better move to ban the use of cheap, plastic “hardware”. The dropside crib that my parents used with my sister and brothers? Yeah. Its still in great shape, 30 years later. Sturdier than ours ever was, even right out of the box. The difference? Ours has plastic “hardware” (which from my understanding was the point of failure in the modern cribs) while my parent’s old one has METAL.
Just say no to cribs!
As soon as I heard about the recall on my crib, we decided to make it into a big-boy bed by removing the drop side altogether. Luckily,my son was 2 and was mature enough to handle it. I don’t know how I would have coped if he’d been a baby.
Plumblucky, I agree about the hardware. The problem is the plastic cheep hardware, not the drop side idea. We had one with metal hardware and it is still in great shape, no problems what so ever.
Gretchen, believe it or not, my kids preferred the crib to being in bed with me. We tried it, they hated it, my husband hated it, and I wasn’t getting any sleep, mostly because they weren’t sleeping. So we went with a crib, a good quality drop side crib that still works well to this day, with no problems.
i have an expensive drop side crib with the metal hardware that was given to me by my aunt who she used with all three of her kids and ive used with my two girls and its in amazing condition. i hope theyll make the new cribs shorter because i had trouble reaching into mine if i didnt use the dropside! really it all boils down to, “you get what you pay for.”
While tragic, the deaths of 30-some children over the last 11 years or so is not exactly an epidemic. If the cap to my recent Snapple bottle is to be believed, you’ve a better chance of being killed by a falling coconut.
I think this might have been the wrong way to go about stopping this type of death from occurring. Regulating the quality of the hardware and educating people about proper assembly and maintenance would have gone a lot further.
We have a drop-side crib, the side of which no longer drops thanks to a bent piece in the metal hardware. However, even when it did drop, there was no physical way to disengage it from in the crib. Nor, with proper assembly, attention, and maintenance could it have come apart in the manner I have seen demonstrated in reports about the recalls.
My son, as one of the PP, likes his crib and outgrew any desire to snuggle/sleep with me long ago. I think he views it as being singularly HIS and, as such, a refuge. I know that I couldn’t have possibly put him in his crib as an infant (especially after my c-section) without the drop side and I’m of what’s generally considered average height.
the company I bought my crib from just mailed me parts to immobilize the crib side. so I’m not replacing mine. I’ve had it for 4 years with two babies. never had a problem but I’ll at least put on the new parts.
Like so many good ideas, this one overlooks the obvious: Why was the drop-side crib invented to begin with? I wonder how many parents will have back trouble now that they must lean too far into the crib to lift a too-heavy infant? I wonder how many infants will fall after climbing out of a crib with a too-high mattress, set to try to compensate for the bad back of the parent?
Of course, I might be biased. I was raised with drop-side cribs for myself and all three of my younger siblings, and raised both my kids with them. My bad back came later, after an industrial injury, but it’s on my mind a lot.
Starrsitter, I agree that 30 babies over 11 years is not of epidemic proportions especially if you compare that to how many babies die in auto accidents over 11 years… Or compare it to the 30,000 (thirty thousand) babies that are stillborn each year! (My first born son was one of them.)
Since I had a son who died at birth, I was paranoid about our next child’s safety. I chose not to buy a drop side crib because after looking at most of them (this was 4 years ago), they all seemed just cheap and flimsy, so I went with a fixed side. It was a pain in the hiney having to reach down so much further, especially at 5 feet 2 inches tall!
Plumblucky, 100% agree on the cheap hardware being the problem. My mother raised 5 kids with ONE drop-side crib and it had just started to get a bit rickety by the time the last baby was 2-3 years old. The one’s now a days are just plain pieces of crap.
Gretchen, my daughter also preferred her crib over sleeping with us. Still, at a little over 3 years old, she much prefers her own bed. She tosses and turns and kicks and can’t sleep. She’ll cuddle up for watching cartoons or reading books, but not for sleeping!
Being the paranoid parent that I am (with good reason, mind you) I highly recommend the Angelcare Movement and Sound Monitor – we still use it and have loved it. We personally know of several parents whose babies’ lives were saved because of this monitor!! Our daughter even stopped breathing once, long enough for the alarm to go off (20 seconds of zero breathing movement). She was sleeping in her bassinet right next to me, the alarm went off, I flew out of bed and turned the light on, she took a huge breath in – but her lips and surrounding her lips were blue. They returned to normal after a few regular breaths, but my goodness was that scary. The alarm going off is what woke her up enough to remember to breathe. I know, a little off topic, but having already buried one of my babies, I like to spread the word, even if it’ll save just one precious life.
Well, this is the most ridiculous thing yet. 30 babies in 11 years? That’s less than 3 babies a YEAR out of MILLIONS who use drop side cribs.
I’m only 5 ft tall. I simply can’t put my 1.5 year old niece into her crib. I have to literally DROP her in, because her crib doesn’t have drop sides. It’s only a 3 inch drop, she gets dropped much farther playing her favorite games with me, but still, if she’s already asleep, it wakes her up.
I really think the government needs to get a grip. Are we going to ban food? Way more children die from choking. Maybe we should ban cars, altogether, too. There are hundreds, if not thousands of deaths a year from automobile accidents.
Here’s how I see it: If the crib is somehow defective, fine. But it isn’t! Three deaths out of MILLIONS, really shows how SAFE these cribs are. Personally, I’d like to see how well these cribs were put together. Someone putting the crib together incorrectly is not the fault of the crib, or the manufacturer. The death of these children is tragic, but it’s an extreme rarity. I just find the whole ban to be horse manure.
I think they should make grapes illegal next. Statistically, they’ve killed way more babies than drop side cribs, :/
This is just ridiculous and irrational. Truly the chances of this happening are one in a million. We do not need legislation to protect us from freak accidents and odds like these. This feels more like playing politics than anything to do with the cribs themselves. I wonder what would happen if we, and by ‘we’ and by ‘we’ I mean most of us, just said ‘no’. No more pretending that there’s no such thing as an accident, no more organizing our lives around vague, remote possibilites, no more condeming parents for making reasonable decisions that work for them.
When I say to “say no to cribs”, that doesn’t necessarily mean the kid sleeps with you, it just means why bother with a crib. I’ll leave the alternatives to everyone’s imagination. There are many. We got a crib before having the baby but never used it. What a waste. Now it goes in the trash and I can’t even donate it, which really burns me up…I wonder if it can be recycled in any way?
The new crib standards passed this week not only include a ban on drop-side designs, but many new tests and standards to avoid the problem with breaking or faulty hardware, misassembly, breaking slats, etc that we’ve seen in the past few years in the 10 million cribs that were recalled. You can read some Q&A about them at Kids In Danger’s blog post on the new standard. And in answer to your question, KID suggests possible solutions for parents in how to make sure their drop-side crib is still safe to use; what are alternatives for short parents or those with back problems; as well as safe sleep alternatives while waiting for a new safe crib. http://kidsindanger.blogspot.com/2010/12/q-on-new-crib-safety-standards-what.html
@GP – it completely depends upon what model you have…BUT you have sufficient wood and rails, I’d imagine (at least at our house) it would either turn into a small child bed or it would turn into a doll’s bed.
You get what you pay for? Um, ours was not cheap by any means. Neither was the one that youngest sister had for her youngins. (To me, cheap != anything over $500)
those are good tips…the crib was supposed to be convertible to a toddler bed anyway…we’ve just gotten used to the large futon on the floor…I actually even prefer sleeping this way to my own bed!
We had the cheapo Simplicity cribs for our twins. It was all we could afford. Buying two cribs would not be cheap. They got recalled and they sent us one replacement but eventually all Simplicity cribs got recalled. We kept using them and then turned them into toddler beds. I had to use the dropside. I have a very bad back and very large toddlers.
I agree with the other poster who said we will be having an epidemic of bad backs with parents soon. I am all for making cribs safe. I don’t see why they can’t figure out how to make a sturdy and safe dropside and then only allow those.
Ridiculous. 30 kids in a decade? Seriously? I wonder if the result won’t be a black-market on used cribs. Or, as one commenter suggested, more babies falling out because parents don’t want to lower the mattress. Our drop-side crib (bought used about 5 years ago) has metal parts and is very study. My youngest still has a year or so left before we can turn it into a toddler bed and we certainly won’t be getting rid of it before then.
I am holding on to my drop side. My two year old is in a toddler bed now, and our dropside has nice metal hardware. I just checked my hardware once a week, or whenever I changed the sheets, and took a wrench to it to tighten up any wiggly-ness about once a month. Never had a problem. Plus, most of the literature I’ve read says that the cribs had cheap plastic and/or broken hardware, causing the drop mechanism to malfunction. I’m 5’4″, and once my son was on the second or third mattress position, my husband had to put him to bed. I couldn’t reach him, even with the side down. Especially once we hit that low spot, it would have to drop him an inch or two to the mattress.
This is maddening, the recall nonsense in this country is getting out of control – 3 children a year? Seriously? As others have stated I’m 5’2 and there’s no way a standard crib is going to work for my next kid. This blows – what’s next government issued bubble wrap for the first 6 months?
Is the government going to outlaw abusive parents? They kill more children in a year than ever would die in drop side cribs! But if we must replace them because of defective hardware, how about having the manufacturers give us cash for trade ins on the new “safer” cribs?!
I have said from the start—It isn’t the cribs, it is the miss use or assembly of the cribs. Also, as stated, how are we suppose to put our babies to bed? I can not reach the mattress over the side. I am caring for my grandson, I have a pack $ play crib. I’m keeping him at the bassinet level as long as I can. When he can sit up by his self I will have to put him in the lower level. But not sure how yet. If he is asleep, I will not be able to just tell him to lay down, after putting him in on his feet. We need well built drop side crib, like they use to make.