07-16-2010, 12:42 AM
I don't think it's fair to compare cribs to hard hats, safety boots... the adult examples are based on choice. An infant isn't going to be choosing to be in a dropside crib or not. I'm not debunking your concept that just because it's rare doesn't mean it doesn't need fixing.
That said, there are other crib related issues which kill far more infants. In about the last two and a half years, there have only been 36 deaths related to drop side cribs. In roughly that same time period, there's been 750 strangulation and suffocation deaths. Those are largely due to people putting stuff in the cribs that don't belong there. These are things like crib bumpers which parents who don't do research think are a good thing for their kid when there's no regulation of them and studies find there are certain ages of kids and designs of the bumpers that are prone to causing suffocation.
That said, there are other crib related issues which kill far more infants. In about the last two and a half years, there have only been 36 deaths related to drop side cribs. In roughly that same time period, there's been 750 strangulation and suffocation deaths. Those are largely due to people putting stuff in the cribs that don't belong there. These are things like crib bumpers which parents who don't do research think are a good thing for their kid when there's no regulation of them and studies find there are certain ages of kids and designs of the bumpers that are prone to causing suffocation.