CPSC Issues Recall Of Graco And Simplicity Cribs

On April 29, the government issued a recall for thousands of Simplicity and Graco cribs, warning of the risk of personal injury or wrongful death to infants through suffocation or strangulation.

According to the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), at least one death has been reported in connection to the Simplicity recall and thousands, possibly hundreds of thousands, of cribs. However, the agency said, many had been previously recalled due to other defects. The agency said that nearly 217,000 Graco dropside cribs manufactured by LaJobi were also under recall.

Both cribs' problems are due to hardware failures.

The issue with the Graco-branded wooden cribs is that the dropside, which is the side that moves up and down, poses a risk of breaking or detaching, which creates a dangerous gap between the side and the crib mattress. A baby could potentially become trapped in said gap and suffocate or be strangled. The CPSC and LaJobi have received 99 complaints of dropside problems with the cribs, though none of the reports involved serious injuries.

LaJobi has made a retrofit kit available to those who purchased the Graco cribs that prevents the dropside from moving, making all four sides stationary.

Under the Simplicity recall, all of the full-sized cribs with tubular metal mattress-support frames are at issue. The frames can potentially bend or detach, causing the mattress to collapse and creating a space that a baby could roll into, become trapped, and suffocate.

The CPSC said that it received a report in 2008 of a 1-year-old boy in North Attleboro, Massachusetts becoming trapped in his Simplicity crib and suffocating.

Simplicity has been the subject of nearly a dozen recalls since 2005 and its cribs and bassinets have been linked to 13 deaths.

The CPSC had previously recalled all Simplicity dropside cribs. The latest recall means that nearly all Simplicity cribs have been recalled, possibly hundreds of thousands. Simplicity and its successor company, SFCA Inc., are no longer in business, so the CPSC is uncertain of exactly how many cribs were sold.