BreathableBaby Mesh Crib Bumpers

For more than ten years, parenting experts, child product safety organizations, and new parents have been talking about the potential safety hazards of using traditional crib bumpers inside infants’ cribs despite the benefits of preventing head, arm and leg injuries.

We are Dale and Susan Waters, married entrepreneurs from Minnesota who turned fear for our baby’s safety inside her crib into a mission to create something that would not only help protect babies but also provide peace of mind for parents. We invented the Breathable Mesh Crib Bumper; a product designed to reduce the risks of suffocation caused by traditional bumpers, while protecting a baby’s limbs from becoming entrapped in the crib slats.

BreathableBaby is Born

12 years ago, we woke to the sound of our 3-month-old daughter screaming in agony from her crib. Our daughter, Sierra had gotten her legs twisted and wedged between the slats of her crib. Her face was pinned against the mattress.

There were many sleepless nights for us and our daughter – no matter what we tried she kept getting her little arms and legs caught between the crib slats. In addition to the obvious pain of being stuck, we feared she would break an arm or leg, or develop neuropathy. But we refused to use a soft, pillowy crib bumper for fear of suffocation.

Research shows that a baby can snuggle up right against their crib bumper. If the baby’s nose and mouth are too close to the bumper, it can potentially cause dangerous re-breathing of carbon dioxide or suffocation. A baby can also get wedged between crib slats and the mattress, unable to escape and possibly suffocate. Because the safety and potential dangers of crib bumpers has been in the news recently, many parents are unsure about how to keep their babies comfortable and safe.

As parents, we were frustrated and upset to learn there was no practical solution available in the marketplace. As designers and entrepreneurs we decided we had to do something about it and devoted ourselves to developing a safer, “breathable” solution – preferably one that was affordable and easy to use. So, we took a break from the media, marketing and music company we owned, and focused on creating a safer solution for babies.

We researched and sourced fabrics, designed and engineered prototypes, held focus groups with mothers and sought extensive third party safety evaluations by a world-leader in safety consultation before finally introducing a safer, smarter crib bumper to the market three years later in 2002.

What makes BreathableBaby bumpers so much safer is our Air Channel Technology™ (A.C.T.) designed to prevent suffocation. A.C.T. maintains air access should a baby’s mouth and nose press up against the fabric. When the BreathableBaby fabric is compressed it is virtually impossible to form an airtight seal. In fact BreathableBaby has “fabric cards” available so that parents can experience the A.C.T. safety feature for themselves — just send in a request along with your address information to customercare@BreathableBaby.com and we’ll send you one free of charge.

Since its launch, we’re proud to say that the BreathableBaby™ brand has forged a new category in “breathable” bedding, and is embraced by parents worldwide. Our products have won numerous awards including The Child Safety House Calls Award of Excellence, and National Parenting Center Seal of Approval for innovation, functionality, design and contribution to creating a safer, healthier crib environment.

It’s imperative that parents are aware of the potential dangers that may be part of a baby’s sleep environment. New information is available all the time, so we urge all expectant parents – first time or otherwise – to seek relevant news, alerts, studies and guidelines from news and safety organizations such as the ones listed in our Healthful Hints below.

Wishing you and your little one sweet dreams.

HEALTHFUL HINTS:

Six Steps to a Safe Sleep Environment For Your Baby

1. Crib Mattress Should be Firm. A soft mattress may increase suffocation risks. Select a firm mattress that fits the crib tightly and a fitted sheet. You should have a fitted not be able to fit more than two fingers between the mattress and the crib side. Before purchasing a crib, visit www.cpsc.gov to make sure the crib you selected has not been recalled.
2. No Blankets for Baby. Do not place anything in baby’s crib that could be a suffocation hazard, including blankets. If you’re worried about keeping your baby warm, a better solution is an infant sleeper or wearable blanket that zips around your baby and can’t ride up over her face.
3. Breathable Mesh Crib Bumpers. Crib bumpers that are plush, pillowy, and made of non-breathable fabric can increase the risk of suffocation. A safer crib bumper option is one that is mesh or breathable and allows for air flow – even when pressed against a baby’s mouth.
4. De-Clutter the Crib. For most parents, all those cute stuffed animals and soft blankets might seem a natural fit for the crib, but unfortunately they all pose suffocation risks. Toys and stuffed animals are best saved for interactive play time.
5. A bottle. Parents of older infants who have started holding their own bottles may be tempted to slip a bottle into the crib in case their baby wakes at night. But even a bottle can pose a suffocation risk. Plus, babies who fall asleep with a bottle in their mouths are prone to tooth decay from the milk sugars that sit on their teeth all night.
6. Pacifiers. Some studies have shown that giving your baby a clean, dry pacifier reduces SIDS rates.

Resources For More Information On Safe Sleep and Crib Safety

• Consumer Product Safety Commission www.cpsc.gov/info/cribs
• Keeping Babies Safe www.keepingbabiessafe.org
• American Academy of Pediatrics www.healthychildren.org
• First Candle www.firstcandle.org
• Juvenile Products Manufacturers Association http://cribsafety.jpma.org

New Campaign on Crib Safety for New and Expecting Parents

We all know that new parents cannot leave a hospital with a newborn baby unless they have a safe car seat. As of this week, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), Keeping Babies Safe (KBS) and NewYork-Presbyterian/Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital are collaborating to educate new and expectant parents and caregivers on crib safety before they leave the hospital or after when they are visiting their pediatrician’s office. A new video called “Safe Sleep for Babies” demonstrates how to avoid suffocation, strangulation and entrapment in cribs, bassinets and play yards.

According to the CPSC press release:  “This education effort is part of CPSC’s Safe Sleep Initiative, a multi-pronged effort aimed at reducing deaths and injuries associated with unsafe sleep environments. In addition to this education effort, CPSC’s Safe Sleep Initiative includes the development of new crib standards, warnings about drop-side cribs, sleep positioners, and infant slings, and the recall of millions of cribs in the past five years.”

In order to create a safe sleep environment for your baby, the video urges parents and caregivers to follow these crib safety tips below:

• Place infants to sleep on their backs
• Use a firm, tight-fitting mattress
• Never use extra padding, blankets or pillows under baby
• Remove pillows or thick comforters
• Do not use positioning devices – they are not necessary and can be deadly
• Regularly check cribs for loose, missing or broken parts or slats
• Do not try to fix a broken crib
• Place cribs or playpens away from windows and window covering cords to avoid fall and strangulation hazards
• Place baby monitor cords away from cribs or playpens to avoid strangulation

The “safe sleep” video will be distributed to hospitals nationwide and can also be viewed online.

For additional information on drop-side crib recalls, please go to www.cpsc.gov

Finally – A Clue to Understanding SIDS

SIDS or Sudden Infant Death Syndrome or “the death of an infant before his or her first birthday that cannot be explained after a complete autopsy, an investigation of the scene and circumstances of the death, and a review of the medical history of the infant and of his or her family” is every parent’s worst nightmare. Finally, according to a new study whose findings were published in the Journal of the American Medical Association earlier this week, a new discovery may help identify babies at risk for SIDS, which each year kills more than 2,300 babies before their first birthday.

Taking the next step in more than 20 years of research, Dr. Hannah Kinney of Harvard Medical School and researchers at Children’s Hospital Boston have linked sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) with low production of serotonin in the brainstem. In the brainstem, serotonin helps regulate some of the body’s involuntary actions, such as breathing, heart rate and blood pressure during sleep. The findings suggest that some babies have an underlying vulnerability to SIDS, which can become fatal when combined with an external stress such as sleeping face down, especially when it occurs within the first year of life.

“Our research suggests that sleep unmasks the brain defect,” Kinney said in a statement. “When the infant is breathing in the face-down position, he or she may not get enough oxygen. In a normal baby rebreathing carbon dioxide, serotonin pathways in the brainstem would stir the baby awake long enough to turn its head, allowing it to breathe fresh air…a baby with low serotonin levels in the brainstem may never stir.”

The team hopes the study will lead to a test that measures a baby’s serotonin levels, making it possible to identify children at highest risk for SIDS….and possibly develop treatments to correct the serotonin deficiency.

Amazing how one small discovery can make such a tremendous impact.

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REFERENCES:

• U.S. researchers find new clue to infant deaths: Reuters, Feb 2, 2010
• SIDS linked to low levels of serotonin: Armenian Medical Network, Feb 2, 2010
• SIDS may be Caused by Low Production of Serotonin in Brainstem, Disabled world, Feb 3, 2010