Child Safety Group Urges Parents to “Bump the Bumpers”
Last week our Chicago birth injury attorneys discussed the growing awareness about the dangers posed to young children by certain products formerly thought to be safe. At the top of that list are crib bumpers. The potential dangers of crib bumpers were recently reiterated by story published today from JPost Magazine.
These bumpers are essentially soft cushions placed around the outside of a crib in order to prevent the child from hitting their head on the wood, plastic, or other hard material of the crib. However, closer investigation into the product has found the bumpers do little to prevent serious injury to the child, and actually add more danger than they protect. The bumpers are generally plumped up, upholstered object. As such they present asphyxiation dangers or other problems if the child gets covered or tangled by the objects. They are a good example of the fragility of young children, because while the objects would obviously be harmless to even toddlers, they can cause serious harm to the youngest babies.
On top of their danger, the product does little to actually protect children from harm. Safety advocates have noted that a baby bumping their head on the crib while turning over does not caused serious harm. That is why it remains surprising that so many crib bumpers are still sold in stores and even included as parts of cribs sets. Awareness of the danger is still new, and so it is likely that as more people and companies become aware of the problem, changes will be enacted to limit their use to keep infants safe.
Unfortunately, our Chicago injury lawyers know that product manufacturers often cannot be relied on to act reasonably to keep the users of their products safe. History is replete with examples of companies that downplayed dangers and ignored safety information about products in order to keep them on the shelves. At times families hurt by these dangerous products can recover for their losses from the companies that allowed the product to be made and sold.
It is natural for parents to be immensely protective of their new additions. Infants are essentially defenseless, and they count on others for their every need. Even small mistakes on the part of those who provide care or services to the child, from parents to doctors, can have lifelong consequences on the child’s life. Our Chicago birth accident attorneys have worked with many families whose children developed life-changing problems because of mistakes made by their medical professionals at birth. In some of those cases the children did not survive the childbirth error. In addition, our Chicago injury attorneys also work with families whose children have been hurt in other ways—such as by negligently designed products or the mistakes of other caregivers at schools and daycare centers. The legal system demands that all community members act reasonable when dealing with one another. When another person or business fails to do so, if is right to seek out legal help to receive compensation for the losses that were suffered.
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See Our Related Blog Posts:
Toddler Left Brain Damaged After Blind Cord Hanging Injury
Child Safety Advocates Warn Against Using Crib Bumpers
