Federal Agency to Set Standards for Potentially Dangerous Baby Bath Seats

Baby bath seats linked to the deaths of 78 infants since 1983 must be made safer, the Consumer Product Safety Commission said Wednesday, announcing it will create a government standard for the product.

The commission’s 3-0 vote included Republican commissioner Mary Sheila Gall, President Bush’s nominee to head the agency, who reversed her long-held opposition to regulating bath seats. In joining Democrats Ann Brown, the current chairwoman, and Thomas Moore, she said that new evidence indicates “there’s a need for intervention.”

Gall’s switch comes at a critical time in her confirmation process. Her nomination hearing had been scheduled for next week but was abruptly canceled after Sen. James M. Jeffords of Vermont announced he was leaving the Republican Party, which will put the Democrats in control of the Senate.

Some advocates have said they hope to use the delay in Gall’s hearing to build opposition to her nomination, citing her general hands-off regulatory philosophy that emphasizes industry self-regulation and consumers’ responsibility to use products safely.

In the past, Gall has said the infant drownings linked to the baby bath seats were largely the result of careless parents who left their infants unattended in the tub. Gall voted against a proposed ban in 1994 for that reason.

Gall on Wednesday continued to condemn “egregious behavior” by caregivers.

But she also said the CPSC knows of at least 110 “near-miss” incidents, when babies almost drowned. In at least 41 of those cases, parents were with their infants.

“This was a tough vote for me; it was a struggle,” Gall said. She said she feared that any commission attempt to make the product safer would give even more parents a false sense of security.

About 1 million bath seats are sold a year, at prices ranging from $10 to $20. Only one major maker remains, Safety 1st, a subsidiary of Cosco Inc. Safety 1st issued a statement saying it “is always considering ways to improve products and looks forward to participating in the rule-making process that was just announced.”

“No matter how you may feel about the parent’s behavior, it is the children dying, not the parent,” Brown said. “These babies deserve our protection.”

The commission said some of the incidents were caused by suction cup failures that caused the seats to tip over.

Mary Ellen Fise, general counsel for the Consumer Federation of America, a Washington-based consumer advocacy group, applauded the commission’s action. However, she said, “we don’t think this product can be made safely.”

The agency, which rejected requests to regulate or ban the seats in 1994, also warned parents to “never leave a baby alone in the water for even a second.”

It is likely to be years before any changes are made. In the past, when the commission began making a rule, the industry often developed its own voluntary safety standards addressing the CPSC’s concerns. Brown said she was hoping the start of the rule-making process would spur industry to do just that.

In 1994, the CPSC began its rule-making process after thousands of babies required emergency room treatment after they fell down stairs in walkers. In 1998, the industry redesigned baby walkers to stop at the edge of stairs.