2.1 Million Cribs Are Recalled in U.S. and Canada

By SARAH WHEATON, The New York Times

Citing cases of infants being trapped and suffocated, the Consumer Product Safety Commission announced a voluntary recall of more than 2.1 million Stork Craft drop-side cribs on Monday, the largest recall ever of cribs.

The recall comes amid growing concern about the safety of drop-side cribs, in which the crib’s side gate slides up and down. Four infants, including one in the Bronx and one in Gouverneur, N.Y., have died from being trapped in these side gates, the agency reported. It recommended that parents “immediately stop using the recalled cribs, wait for the free repair kit, and do not attempt to fix the cribs without the kit.” Read more.

A vaccine for swine flu is expected this fall and the CDC is recommending that pregnant women, young people 6 months to 24 years old and people who live with or care for children younger than 6 months old be the first to get it.

This is likely to add heat to the ongoing debate about the safety of vaccines. While most children will have received dozens of vaccine injections by the time they are 18, questions about potential side effects persist. Health officials swear by vaccines’ safety, but the number of parents who decline to have their children vaccinated has doubled in recent decades, according to a 2008 article in the the New York Times.  

Despite my inclination toward natural parenting, I have to admit vaccines are one of the issues I have least scrutinized and so far my children have followed the recommended schedule (although we’ve skipped the flu shots). A recent article in Mothering magazine does a good job of presenting both sides of the debate, concluding in the end that there is reason to believe the medical establishment may have swung toward excessive inoculation, while ignoring the potential negative side effects and questionable effectiveness of some vaccines (a previous swine flu outbreak in 1976 sparked a mass vaccination effort that was later aborted after the shot was linked with rare but serious side effects). Personally, I’m beginning to think in the future I’d like to do some more research before simply following CDC recommendations. Like everything, more information never hurts.

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A coworker of mine who is expecting any day now went to get her car seat installation inspected and learned that they are trying to increase the number of people trained to perform the inspections. I have to admit that while we got our first car seat inspected before my son was born, we didn’t when we graduated to a forward-facing seat (Judging from the amount of time my husband spent fiddling and cinching, I was pretty sure the doors would fly off the car before that seat came out). But being able to have your seat inspected is definitely an option that gives parents peace of mind. (For more on this, see the American Academy of Pediatrics guidelines on car seat use and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s ratings.)

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On Saturday there was a skate competition and tribute to Tyler Valencia, a local skater who died about three years ago in a car crash. The event at the skatepark was sponsored by the city and The Boarding Haus, and I was impressed to see the Southwest Regional Emergency & Trama Advisory Council was passing out 100 percent FREE helmets. Unfortunately, none of the competitors I saw were wearing head protection. Maybe it’s just a sign that I’m getting old, but when did bashing your brains in on concrete become cool? Why reject something that could save your life and costs you nothing? Talk about rebel without a cause.

The trama advisory council can be reached at 739-1911 or swretac.org. 

Memorial skate contest honors Tyler Valencia

While our children are still a year or two away from organized sports, as the offspring of a former competitive gymnast and a former competitive snowboarder — in sports-crazy Durango, no less — it is undoubtedly in the mail. 

Part of me is eager to see just what activity captures their imagination. But part of me recalls my own injury-filled history with sports and feels trepidation. I started gymnastics at 6 years and felt I had found nirvana. The week I learned a round-off, backhand-spring I came home and did them over and over in our living room until I was exhausted. It was as if my body had found the manifestation of what it was made to do. And the coaches cooed over my rapid progress. Then one day, doing one of those hand-springs that by then felt second nature, I got sloppy. Instead of absorbing the impact, my elbow dislocated. The pain was intense, but soon forgotten. After a couple months, I was back at it. Several months later, it happened again. That time, I was put under general anesthetic to relocate it and was in a cast for about a month. The doctor said I should take a year off gymnastics to let the ligaments strengthen. I was devastated. I took ballet and tap in the interim but neither of them stirred in me the passions that gymnastics did. When the year was up, I insisted on going back.

But something had changed. Though I stuck with it for 5 years after that, until I was 15, fear of reinjury haunted me, and my hesitancy hurt my performance. Ironically, my worst injury came from the sport I took up after that: cheerleading. A fall from a pyramid shattered my ankle and left me with pins that remain there to this day. It’s become prematurely arthritic, and I put my husband on notice that we’ll be buying me a new one as soon as they become available.

In recent years, light has been shown on the growing risk kids face from overuse injuries because of the younger and younger ages at which they are specializing in a specific sport. This was the topic of a book, Until It Hurts: America’s Obsession with Youth Sports and How It Harms Our Kids by Mark Hyman. The American Academy of Pediatrics offers some recommendations on preventing injury in this article. Various sources mention rotating activities to give stressed muscles and joints a chance to recover. 

In the end, the benefits to having kids participate in sports are many and well documented. And I firmly believe they instill a life-long dedication to fitness. But keeping sight of the importance of enjoyment in it all is likely to not only prevent burn out, but guard against serious injuries that could hinder them throughout adulthood.