“Every parent wants their baby to be safe, but once the market is flooded with an unsafe product, it’s hard to bring it back. They’re in thrift stores. They’re in daycares. They’re being handed down from sister to brother. They’re everywhere. The impetus should not be on brand-new parents. The impetus should be on the company to make sure that the product is safe in the first place.”
Erika Ritcher, whose newborn daughter died almost 5 years ago while sleeping in a Fisher-Price Rock ‘n Play sleeper.
Nancy Cowles, executive director of Kids in Danger, a nonprofit focused on the safety of children’s products, explains:
“For most products, we see a range of 10% to 30% effectiveness rate, which means most recalled products are still out there, somewhere. That leads to mixed messages, because obviously someone is making it, other people are using it, so [parents] assume it must be safe.”
She went on to say:
“Children’s products stay around for decades. If the product was put away in between children at the time of the recall and parents didn’t hear about it, they bring the product out and they might continue to use it for years, so that’s a big problem, getting those products not just off the market, but out of homes.”
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