Daycare and Nursery Crib Safety Update

As you may recall from the November 2012 issue of Safety Watch, GuideOne outlined the two phase implementation strategy of the new federal safety standards for full-sized and non-full sized baby cribs. According to the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008, these safety standards aim to keep children safer in their cribs and prevent deaths that result from detached crib drop-sides and faulty or defective hardware. As a reminder, a review of the new federal safety standards is below:

Effective June 28, 2011, new standards took effect for all manufacturers, retailers, importers and distributors of cribs sold, including resale or leased in the United States. These changes:
- Stopped the manufacture and sale of dangerous, traditional drop-side cribs;
- Made mattress supports stronger;
- Made crib hardware more durable; and
- Made safety testing more rigorous.
Effective Dec. 28, 2012, organizations were required to replace their existing cribs with ones that met the new safety standards.

If your church owns or operates a child care center, daycare or nursery and charges a fee for its services, you must comply with the new crib rule. If your facility does not charge a fee, but your child care workers are paid, the new regulations also apply to your organization. However, if the child care arrangement at your church involves parents (or others) volunteering to care for children during church service (and no one is paid to care for the children), this arrangement is not covered by the crib rule.

Given the dangers involved, the recommended risk management practice is that churches discontinue their use of non-compliant cribs. Additionally, you will not want to resell, donate or give away your non-compliant cribs, as they are not safe for anyone to use. These cribs should be disassembled before being discarded so that no one is tempted to use them.

By converting to the safer cribs, you will not only help protect those who are too young to protect themselves, but it also will help protect the church against an expensive claim or lawsuit.

For additional information, please visit the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, “Child Care Providers Guide to New Crib Standards” fact sheet.

Daycare and Nursery Crib Safety Update

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