The CPSC has submitted an administrative lawsuit against Baby Matters, LLC. This is the company that makes the Nap Nanny® and Nap Nanny Chill™ recliners for infants. The complaint comes following five baby deaths—four in a Nap Nanny Generation Two model and another one related to the Chill recliner. The regulator is alleging design defects and problems with the products’ accompanying instructions and warnings. It wants an order that would mandate the company to tell the public about the issue and give their consumers the choice of a complete refund.
If your child was injured while in a Nap Nanny or because of another consumer product, please contact The Gilbert Law Group® today. Our products liability lawyers represent families whose children were hurt because manufacturers, suppliers, distributors, and others made products that were inherently unsafe, defective, and/or failed. Already, the CPSC has more than 70 reports of incidents related to the Nap Nanny products.
Nap Nanny Recliner
The problem with this infant recliner is that the babies appear prone to partially falling out or hanging over its side even when harnessed in. This can place them at possible risk of suffocation, entrapment, and/or death.
In 2010, the agency and the manufacturer together recalled about 30,0000 of these recliners over such safety issues after having received reports of incidents involving 22 babies under the age of five months. One of the infants, a 4-month-old girl, reportedly died in a Nap Nanny, which was doubling as a crib. Yet despite the modifications made to the instructions and warnings since then, contends the CPSC, the other deaths followed.
Unfortunately, suffocation and entrapment are among the more serious common hazards involving unsafe infant cribs, recliners, sleepers, and other products. Such dangers are not new and clearly avoidable if only those involved in the chain of design, manufacture, production, and distribution exercised the proper care to eliminate possible safety risks.
It doesn’t matter if the product was used as intended. If there is an inherent safety issue when using the item and it causes injury/death you may be able to obtain products liability damages.
While consumers generally have no control over the actions of those involved in the manufacturing and distribution of cribs, playpens, sleepers, recliners, and other similar products, there are steps that you can take to protect your kids and hopefully minimize the chance of nursery product injuries or wrongful death, including:
- If you are going to let your baby sleep in a carrier or recliner make sure that he/she is securely fastened in and that the product is on the ground so that if he/she does fall out, it won’t be too far down. This precaution can prevent serious head injuries. (Check operating instructions for other warnings.)
- Avoid cribs with headboard/footboard cutouts.
- Check to make sure that the mattress of a crib is the correct fit for it. There shouldn’t be a huge gap between the two so that a child can’t fall into that space, which becomes an entrapment or suffocation. hazard.
- Make sure a crib bumper is securely fastened to the crib and any overly long ties are trimmed so they don’t pose a strangulation risk.
- Crib slats cannot be over 6 centimeters apart from each other; anything less poses an entrapment danger.
- Don’t hang anything that can pose a strangulation hazard on a crib.
- Keep the crib or bed away from window blinds or curtains with long cords.
