CPSC Approves New Federal Safety Standard for Bassinets and Cradles

To prevent deaths and injuries to children, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) has approved a new federal mandatory standard to improve the safety of bassinets and cradles. The new standard incorporates provisions in the voluntary standard (ASTM F2194-13), Standard Consumer Safety Specifications for Bassinets and Cradles.

CPSC recommended five modifications to F2194-13: a clarification of the scope of the bassinet/cradle standard; a change to the pass/fail criterion for the mattress flatness test; an exemption from the mattress flatness requirement for bassinets that are less than 15 inches across; the addition of a removable bassinet bed stability requirement; and a change to the stability test procedure, requiring the use of a newborn CAMI dummy rather than an infant FAMI dummy.

CPSC received notice of 426 incidents involving bassinet/cradles, including 132 fatalities from November 2007 through March 2013. The new standard defines bassinet/cradle as a small bed designed primarily to provide sleeping accommodations for infants, supported free standing legs, a stationary frame or stand, a wheeled base, a rocking base, or swing relative to a stationary base. In a stationary position, a bassinet/cradle is intended to have a sleep surface less than or equal to 10 degrees from horizontal.