Next week — the week of June 27, 2011 — new safety rules take effect in the United States next week that will ban the manufacture and sale of traditional drop-side rail cribs.
The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission ordered the ban on the popular cribs late last year amid growing evidence they had played a role in the suffocation or strangulation deaths of dozens of infants over the past decade.
But hotels, motels and day care centers in the country can continue to use drop-side rail cribs for another 18 months. After December 28, 2012, those businesses must switch to cribs that comply with the tougher new federal standards.
The new rules, the first change in U.S. crib standards in 30 years, also require manufacturers to make mattress supports and hardware used in cribs stronger and more durable and to subject their products to more rigorous safety testing.