VANCOUVER — More than 2.1 million Canadian-made drop-side cribs have been recalled in Canada and the United States after more than 100 cases of injuries, including four deaths were reported, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission said Monday.
The manufacturer, British Columbia-based Stork Craft Manufacturing Inc., announced the voluntary recall of approximately 1.2 million drop-side cribs distributed in the U.S. and 968,000 distributed in Canada, the CPSC said in a news release.
Nearly 150,000 of the cribs on recall carry the Fisher-Price logo.
Health Canada, the U.S. agency and the company are aware of 110 incidents of drop-side detachment — 67 incidents in the United States and 43 in Canada, the U.S. agency said.
Three entrapments were reported in Canada and 12 in the United States, four of them resulting in the suffocation and death of four young children. Fall injuries ranged from concussion to bumps and bruises.
Consumer advocates have complained for years about drop-side cribs.
ASTM International, an organization that sets voluntary industry safety standards for everything from toys to the steel used in commercial buildings, approved a new standard last week that requires four immovable, or fixed, sides for full-size cribs — essentially eliminating the manufacture of drop-side cribs.
CPSC is also considering new rules for making cribs safer and could adopt the ASTM voluntary standard as a mandatory one, outright banning the cribs.
Toys “R” Us started phasing out drop-side cribs earlier this year and will no longer carry them next month.
It’s not the first time Stork Craft has recalled one of its crib products. In January, it worked with Health Canada to voluntarily call back cribs made between May 2000 and November 2008, because it was found that metal support brackets used to support the mattress frame could crack if installed incorrectly.
The recall includes Stork Craft cribs with manufacturing and distribution dates between January 1993 and October 2009.
It also includes Stork Craft cribs with the Fisher-Price logo that have manufacturing dates between October 1997 and December 2004.
The Stork Craft cribs with the Fisher-Price logo were first sold in the U.S. in July 1998 and in Canada in September 1998.
It called on parents and caregivers to immediately stop using the recalled cribs, and contact the company — at 1-877-274-0277 — to receive a free repair kit.
The recalled cribs were sold at major retailers in the United States and Canada, including BJ’s Wholesale Club, J.C. Penney, Kmart, Meijer, Sears, USA Baby, and Wal-Mart stores and online at Amazon.com, Babiesrus.com, Costco.com, Target.com, and Walmart.com from January 1993 through October 2009 for between $100 and $400.
The cribs were manufactured in Canada, China and Indonesia.