California product liability lawyers can add sleep positioners to a long list of deadly children’s products. For years now, parents have used infant sleep positioners as a means of enabling their baby to sleep on the back without rolling over onto the stomach, and preventing the risk of sudden infant death syndrome.   The Food and Drug Administration is now warning that there have been several suffocation deaths related to the use of these sleep positioners.

According to the Food and Drug Administration, it has information about a total of 12 reported infant deaths from the use of sleep positioners over the past 13 years.  The federal agency is in fact recommending that parents and caregivers no longer use the positioners for their infants.  The agency says that most of these infants suffocated when they moved from a position on the back to a stomach position. 

Sleep positioners are available in two models.  They can be flat mats with two bolsters on each side to prevent the baby from rolling over onto its front.  They can also come as inclined mats with separate side bolsters.  Both these types of sleep positioners are used to prevent babies from rolling over onto the front and suffocating. 

In fact, manufacturers of these sleep positioners claim that they help keep babies on their backs, and lower the risk of sudden infant death syndrome.  The Food and Drug Administration, however, has never approved of these products as safe for use with infants.  Besides, the federal agency say that it is not aware of any scientific data to corroborate the claim that these sleep positioners actually reduce the risk of sudden infant death syndrome, or any other kind of suffocation risk.

The risk from using these sleep positioners are serious enough for the Food and Drug Administration to warn that these must be discarded.  The federal agency is in effect adding these products to a long list of children's products that have been confirmed as being dangerous.