Report: New Guidelines Issued About Crib Bumpers

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) has issued new guidelines telling parents that bumper pads should not be used in the cribs of infants, according to a report on Parenting.com.

The new recommendation is the first time the AAP has officially come out against the use of crib bumpers, according to the report. The AAP said that crib bumpers do not protect against injury, but do carry a possible risk of suffocation, strangulation or entrapment.  

“In 2005, when we last published a policy statement and recommendations, we had some concerns about bumper pads, but we didn't really have a lot of evidence that this was a real problem,” Rachel Moon, M.D., with the Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, D.C. and chair of the AAP SIDS task force, told Parenting.com. “Since then, there have been some published studies looking at bumper pads, and we concluded that if there's no reason for them to be in the crib.”

Read the complete report on crib bumpers on Parenting.com.