Sleep Positioners: A Suffocation Risk
Channel: U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission
Date: 2010-12-13

CPSC and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) are warning parents and caregivers to stop using sleep positioners. Over the past 13 years CPSC and FDA have received 12 reports of infants between the ages of 1 month and 4 months who have died when they suffocated in these positioners or when they became trapped between a sleep positioner and the side of a crib or bassinet. CPSC has received dozens of reports of infants who were placed on their backs or sides in sleep positioners, only to be found later in potentially hazardous positions within or next to the sleep positioners. 

The safest crib is one with only a mattress and a tight-fitting sheet. Parents should stop using sleep positioners or ANY device to hold an infant on his or her back or side for sleep. These are unnecessary and can pose a suffocation risk to your baby.