Baby product recalls include chairs, cribs
Warning of potential injury and death, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission has announced a flurry of recalls of baby-related merchandise, including high chairs with falling seats, cribs that can cause suffocation and toys that pose a choking hazard.
About 643,000 Evenflo Envision high chairs and 90,000 Evenflo Majestic high chairs were recalled Thursday because plastic fasteners and metal screws can fall out and allow the seat back to fall backward or detach, said Scott Wolfson, a commission spokesman.
The recall of the Majestic chair is an expansion of a December recall of 95,000 units of another Majestic chair model, Wolfson said. All together, more than 185,000 Majestic chairs have been recalled, he said.
Evenflo has received 320 complaints of seat backs detaching or suddenly reclining and 13 reports of screws or fasteners falling out of the Envision chair. The company has had 16 similar reports on the Majestic chair, Wolfson said.
The recalled chairs were sold at Toys R Us, Babies R Us, Wal-Mart, Kmart, Burlington Coat Factory and other stores across the country, he said. The Envision was sold between December 2002 and April 2006; the Majestic was sold between January 2007 and March of this year.
Last week, the commission announced that Fisher-Price was recalling 24,000 of its 3-in-1 high chairs after the company received reports of the seat falling backward from its frame when the booster seat release was unlatched while the child was still seated, Wolfson said.
Fisher-Price is offering a free repair kit to parents, he said. The company received one report of a child’s skull being fractured after the seat fell back. The 3-in-1 chair was sold at Target stores from December 2008 through March of this year.
The Evenflo high chairs were manufactured in China; the Fisher-Price chair was made in Mexico, Wolfson said.
And on Wednesday, about 4,000 What’s Inside soft toy boxes were recalled because the head of a stuffed butterfly toy can fall off, creating a choking hazard, Wolfson said.
Maker Lakeshore Learning Materials of Carson has received no reports of any choking incidents. Free replacement butterflies are being offered in Lakeshore stores, Wolfson said.
Finally, about 1,900 SunKids convertible cribs, built in China and imported by Commerce-based Suntech Enterprises Inc., were recalled because children could suffocate in the crib, Wolfson said.
A gap can open between the side of the crib and its mattress if the bed’s mesh is not zipped into place, and a child could suffocate if wedged in the gap, Wolfson said.
The drop side of the crib also can fail to fully latch, which could result in children falling out, he said. No incidents have been reported with the crib, Wolfson said, but a 5-month-old died in August after being trapped in a similar crib. The SunKids convertible cribs were sold in California, New York and New Jersey between Jan. 2007 and Oct. 2008, he said.
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