NoVA, DC Parents May Have Products Linked To 90 Baby Deaths

WASHINGTON, DC — Some popular inclined baby sleep products that parents in DC and northern Virginia already own wouldn’t make it to market under new guidelines approved by federal safety regulators after investigations tied them to as many as 90 accidental deaths of infants.

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission on Wednesday tightened its regulations on a range of infant sleep products like baby tents, travel beds and portable bassinets, The Washington Post and others have reported.

They’ll now have to meet the same standards already in place for cribs, bassinets, bedside sleepers and play yards.

The new standards are intended to prevent tragedies that Pennsylvania mom Sara Thompson knows all too well. Her newborn son, Alex, died in a Fisher-Price Rock 'n Play in 2011, and she was among the grieving parents pushing for the new rule regulating all inclined baby sleep products, The Post reported.

In a letter to the product safety commission earlier this year, she wrote that “babies will continue to die” without needed changes, urging the rule to be passed. A Washington Post investigation showed Alex was one of at least 90 babies whose deaths were tied to inclined baby sleep products.

The recent product safety commission vote, in effect, closed a loophole that allowed some products — ones not labeled as cribs or bassinets — to skirt federal regulations.