Crib Bumpers are Perfectly Safe.

Time, a magazine I usually avoid, grabbed my attention with a headline: "Why Parents Should Stop Using Crib Bumpers Now." So I read it. They want you (duh) to stop using crib bumpers. They quote Marion Burton, from the American Academy of Pediatrics*: "I can't think of any reason to have them.**"

Well we have had them in the crib with each of our children because:

they are pretty

they prevent a baby waking up when they spin in the crib and smash head or feet or hands into hard crib wall

they are pretty (it's a woman thing, talk to your mother)

Let me tell you the reason crib bumpers are described as dangerous: 52 babies in were strangled by their crib bumpers. In the last twenty years. 52 in 20 years is (statistically) nothing. That is an average of fewer than three per year. Three per year, when (at a time of record low birth rates) we have well over 4,000,000 babies born per year; 0.000007%. Three babies die from being struck by lighting inside their prams on cloudless days. Three babies die from drowning in 1/2' of water in a bathtub. Three DOZENS of babies die every year in America from being left alone strapped in car seats by murderous neglectful parents or day (don't) care workers. Do we have the American Academy of Pediatrics urge us to stop using car seats, or stop transporting children in automobiles altogether? Three dead children a year is no reason to stop using crib bumpers. Use them. Enjoy them.

Take note: Currently, the crib in which #4 sleeps has BOTH bumpers AND a drop side! GASP! And we leave the drop side down because #4 is too small to hoist himself up and it's easier for us to grab him with the side down! Horrors! And when we're done with it, we are going to sell this death trap crib to another unsuspecting victim family set of new parents!

Relax. When the Consumer Product Safety Commission, ostensibly the people telling you not to use bumpers, says “We have not been to the point of being able to attribute crib bumpers to a cause of death but we are going back into old cases to see if that determination has changed.” you can relax already. Relax.

The babies killed "by" crib bumpers die because they get tangled up in all the other frilly crap women put in cribs. Don't stack them deep with entangling blankets and blocking-up pillows. Wrap them in a pajama that lets teh baby roll. Done.

********

*yes, the same AAP that says NEVER to give a baby water to drink, and which (temporarily) approved a mild form of female genital mutilation for American baby girls. Not necessarily on a level with the Voice of God when it comes to deciding whose advice to follow. By the way, this is probably O. Marion Burton, a dude, President of the AAP.

**My Y chromosome has to agree with Dr. Burton: crib bumpers are female nonsense. My [deleted] common sense disagrees. Use crib bumpers if your babymomma likes them. That she wants it is reason enough to cave on such a harmless, relatively inexpensive thing. Do I agree with him or not? Yes.