All models of Rock ’n Play Sleepers, which were produced in their millions by Fisher-Price, are considered dangerous, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) says.
The recall, affecting 4.7 million sleepers, was first announced on April 12, 2019, when the CPSC warned that “over 30 fatalities were reported to have occurred in the Rock ’n Play Sleepers after the infants rolled from their back to their stomach or side.”
Babies in that position were then put at risk of suffocation or choking on regurgitated milk while trapped in the sleepers, which were designed with an incline that tilts the baby’s head up, despite recommendations by the American Academy of Pediatrics that babies should sleep flat on their backs.
Tragically, since the recall was issued almost four years ago, “approximately 70” other babies have also been reported to have died in the sleepers, including at least eight who died after the recall had actually been announced, the CPSC said.
“We are issuing this announcement [again] because, despite their removal from the marketplace and a prohibition on their sale, babies continue to die in these products,” CPSC Chairman Alexander Hoehn-Saric said in a statement on Monday.
Just weeks after the first recall of the Fisher-Price sleepers, some 700,000 products from other brands were also hit with a recall amid safety fears. Kids II—a children’s products manufacturer based in Atlanta, Georgia— issued the warning in conjunction with the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission.
Details of which products were affected can be found here in Newsweek’s article about that particular recall, which came after at least five infants died while in the rockers after they managed to turn over on to their stomachs.
That recall was also re-announced on January 9.
In June 2021, the House Committee on Oversight and Reform found that Fisher-Price had ignored repeated warnings that its Rock ’n Play sleepers were dangerous before the device was recalled in April 2019.
The committee’s chairwoman, Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney, said: “Today’s staff report is damning. The committee’s investigation shows how corporate greed and weak federal oversight led to the deaths of dozens of babies in an unsafe product. It is shameful that Fisher-Price endangered lives simply to help its bottom line. The findings of the Committee’s investigation make clear that we must strengthen the Consumer Product Safety Act to put American consumers over corporate profits.”
A spokeswoman for Mattel, which owns the Fisher-Price brand, told Newsweek: “Following the April 2019 voluntary recall, Fisher-Price immediately stopped sales of Rock ’n Play sleepers. Since then, the company has worked diligently to remove all recalled product from the market.
“Today’s re-announcement serves as a critical reminder to both consumers and resellers that they should not use, sell, or donate the recalled Rock ’n Play.”
Parents who have one of the sleepers should visit Mattel’s website to find out more about the recall and what they should do next, she added.
Grieving parents spoke to a Congressional hearing about their plight in July last year. Mom Erika Richter had enjoyed just two weeks with her newborn daughter Emma, when her baby lost her life while in a Fisher-Price Rock ’n Play sleeper.
In a heart-wrenching video appearance, she held up her baby’s clothes and said that was all she had left of her now. “We trusted a name brand, and we were wrong,” she said.
Speaking to Good Morning America afterwards about the loss of her baby, Richter said: “I think about her all the time. I think about what life would be like with her still around. She would be three years old… I just never expected life to be like this.”
Newsweek has reached out to Richter for further comment.
Two Lawsuits
Two federal class-action lawsuits have been filed against Fisher-Price and its parent alleging dangerous and defective design and negligence.
Of the 100-plus deaths allegedly connected to the Rock n’ Play sleepers, the CPSC said “Fisher-Price notes that in some of the reports, it has been unable to confirm the circumstances of the incidents or that the product was a Rock ’n Play Sleeper.”
But “consumers should stop using the Rock ’n Play immediately and contact Fisher-Price for a refund or voucher,” the CPSC says, adding: “It is illegal to sell or distribute the recalled sleepers.”
President Joe Biden signed a bill called the Safe Sleep for Babies Act of 2021 into law in May 2022, which effectively bans inclined sleepers with an angle of greater than 10 degrees from the U.S.
A number of other products designed for babies and children have been recalled in recent years.
Millions of infant swings and rockers were recalled last August for “entanglement and strangulation hazards” after one child died and another was injured.
While just a month later, a stroller company announced it had recalled one of its products over concerns about possible finger amputations.
