Today marks momentous progress in CPSC’s efforts to keep sleeping babies alive. A safety standard is now in effect to make the world safer for a lot of babies.  It addresses the risk of death posed by poorly designed “infant support cushions,” commonly known as infant loungers or baby pillows.  While these products should never be used for sleep, many of them contributed to unsafe sleep conditions, leading to 17 known deaths in 2020 and at least 17 more deaths in 2021.^[1] 

            With CPSC’s new standard in place, these pillows must now be firm enough to prevent suffocation and flat enough to prevent the hazardous inclined positioning of a baby’s head and neck.  The products must also pass tests for entrapment and fall hazards. 

            This is a major piece of the safe infant sleep puzzle, because when combined with CPSC’s recently effective rule to make nursing pillows safer,^[2] CPSC’s broad infant sleep products rule,^[3] and CPSC’s bans on inclined sleepers^[4] and crib bumpers,^[5] this closes one of the largest remaining product safety gaps contributing to unsafe sleep.  This will put a stop to companies avoiding safety standards by calling their baby pillows by different names…we now cover the field for any such products. Over 3,600 infants die in their sleep each year,^[6] many tied to unsafe sleep environments.  Our work to save babies’ lives by clearing the market of dangerous products continues.  Next up: rockers.^[7]    

Yours in safety,  

Commissioner Richard L. Trumka Jr.

*The views expressed in this statement are solely the views of Commissioner Trumka and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Commission.