Earlier this month, Inez Tenenbaum, head of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, told MSNBC that her organization intended to formally warn parents of the dangers of carrying babies in slings.  Today, the agency took that general warning a step further by recalling 1 million Infantino “SlingRider” and “Wendy Bellissimo” infant slings due to the risk of suffocation.  An additional 15,000 are being recalled in Canada.

CPSC says these slings pose a suffocation hazard and should not be used to carry babies under the age of four months. Continue reading »

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Bad news for Toyota just became good news for parents in the market for a carseat. But is Evenflo that proverbial pot poking fun at the kettle?

The company has offered up a $10 discount on some of its carseats to anyone affected by the Toyota recall. Sounds great on the surface, but this parenting writer apparently has a longer memory than the Evenflo company. Continue reading »

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Is this the holiday season or is it recall season? Another major kids product recall is under way – this time it’s nearly half a million car seats being called back by the Consumer Product Safety Commission and manufacturers.

Affecting four of the biggest brands of car seats, it’s affecting only those used as infant carriers. Continue reading »

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A reissued recall on cribs that have been out of retail stores for eight years is a reminder that saving pennies in a tough economy might not pay.

The LaJobi Molly and Betsy cribs were yanked off the market in 2001 for a strangulation hazard, but eight years on parents trying to get by in a strapped economy are picking them up in secondhand stores.

Hence the recall all over again – and a good reminder that sometimes things land in a secondhand store because one family didn’t want them. Continue reading »

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Adventure Playsets of Amarillo, Texas is voluntarily recalling several models of its wooden play sets/swing sets. The plastic-coated wooden monkey bar ladder that runs overhead of the swings can rot, creating a fall hazard. Sixteen children have been hurt — most when the swing came loose from the monkey bars while in use — and the company has received 1400 complaints of rotting wood.
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I have yet to poison anyone with my cooking, but I am always concerned with issues of food safety (to the point of annoying both my husband and my father no end – a typical family dinner features my sister-in-law the nurse and I shrieking “Dad! You had raw chicken on that plate! Don’t put the cooked – oh for the love of Pete, we’re all going to get salmonella.”).

And now that I have two little eaters in my house, it’s all the more important. Not only is dealing with a kid with a stomach bug unpleasant, but they can get a lot sicker than we can from food-borne illnesses.

A new website called FoodSafety.gov aims to help parents and well, everybody stay on top of the latest food recalls, as well as Continue reading »

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Well isn’t Mattel just so special. How special you ask? While other toy makers and manufacturers of goods for children must have a third party give their items a seal of approval, good old Mattel doesn’t have too.

Apparently the Consumer Product Safety Commission recently gave permission to Mattel to self regulate and use their own in house labs for testing. Congress passed a law last summer – after oodles of toys were found containing lead – that requires testing on anything intended for the under twelve set. Six of the recalled toys in question were from Mattel, which resulted in $2.3 million dollars in civil penalties fines. Continue reading »

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