Product Liability: to prevent Wrongful Death and Personal Injury to Children, the Consumer Product Safety Commission approves New Safety Standards for Bassinets and Cradles

426 personal injury incidents including 132 wrongful deaths related to bassinets and cradles have been reported to the CPSC between November 2007 and March 2013. Therefore the CPSC has approved a new federal mandatory standard to improve the safety of bassinets and cradles.

To create the new mandatory standard, the CSPC incorporated 5 modifications to the actual voluntary standard (ASTM F2194-13) Standard Consumer Safety Specification for Bassinets and Cradles. These modification are:

1. a clarification of the scope of the bassinet/cradle standard
2. a change to the pass/fail criterion for the mattress flatness test
3. an exemption from the mattress flatness requirement for bassinets that are less than 15 inches across
4. the addition of a removable bassinet bed stability requirement
5. a change to the stability test procedure, requiring the use of a newborn CAMI dummy rather than an infant CAMI dummy

Source: CPSC