Walmart and Buy Buy Baby plan to stop selling infant inclined sleepers, popular products that federal safety regulators recently warned the public to stop using after they were linked to more than 70 accidental deaths, the Consumer Product Safety Commission said Thursday.
The two retailers join Amazon and eBay, who announced Wednesday that they, too, plan to stop selling the product.
It’s been a rapid downfall for a product that in less than a year has gone from a sleeping device loved by many parents to a product reviled after a string of safety recalls and research suggesting it was inherently dangerous.
The product’s problems took off in April with the recall of millions of Fisher-Price Rock ‘n Plays. That was followed by recalls of inclined sleepers made by Kids II and Dorel Juvenile Group. But several companies continued to offer the products.
Inclined sleepers are bassinet-like products, which allow babies to sleep at an incline of as much as 30 degrees.
And they remain legal to buy in the United States.
But they are getting harder to find – both because of recalls and now retailers agreeing to voluntarily stop selling the product.
Last month the Consumer Product Safety Commission said consumers should stop using all inclined sleepers because of the risk of accidental suffocation. The warning came two weeks after the release of a CPSC-funded study that declared the product’s design dangerous.
Problems with inclined sleepers had been on the agency’s radar since at least 2017.
A Washington Post investigation in May detailed how Fisher-Price invented the class of products in 2009 without medical safety testing or input from a pediatrician.
The American Academy of Pediatrics also advises parents to not use inclined sleepers.
An Amazon spokesman said the company’s decision was made in line “with the latest research.” The online retailer said it had updated its banned products list but that implementing the new rule across its platform would take time. Amazon chief executive Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.
EBay also said it is stopping the sale of inclined sleepers, according to the CPSC.
Federal legislation to ban inclined sleepers was introduced this summer. But the bill remains stuck in a House committee, its passage uncertain.
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