End of a Crib Era

HOUSTON - The most common crib in America is no more. The feds have issued an outright ban on drop-side cribs due to safety issues.

The news has some parents asking, 'What took so long?' There have been at least 32 deaths in the past decade and nine million recalls. Still, many families have kept the inexpensive drop-side cribs in their homes. They're wondering, 'What do we do now?'

Emily Mundine assumed the drop-side crib she settled on was safe.

"I'm not that tall. I'm not that short either, but I liked the fact I was able to lower it," she said.

Mundine and her mom run Crayon's Children's Resale.

"With the news coming through we will be strictly selling stationary cribs only," said Gail Roben, owner.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission voted unanimously to ban the manufacture, sale and resale of drop-side cribs.

"I am proud to announce the United States will now have one of the strongest crib standards in the entire world," said Inez Tenenbaum, CPSC chairman.

The announcement comes too late for the Arceneaux family of Houston. In 2007 their eight-month-old daughter fell between the mattress and a separated drop rail and suffocated.

"You don't expect it to start falling apart," said Mark Weycer, attorney with the Weycer Law Firm.

"When you factor in the number of times a parent drops it and puts it up and drops it and puts it up, that hardware was not strong enough to withstand those forces," he added.

Weycer also helped spotlight assembly problems that can create the dangerous gap blamed in most of the deaths.

"Every parent who has one of these cribs should take a real serious look at them to make sure their crib is safe," said David Tiede, director of the Texas Consumer Complaint Center at the University of Houston Law Center.

"Everyone should contact the manufacturer to see if the manufacturer is going to give them some concession for the government declaring the crib unsafe....There are already class actions filed. You're not going to get rich on that but at the end of the day if you are a member of a class it may very well be that the manufacturers, if conduct is proven against them, will be required to distribute some credit," said Tiede.

The new standards take effect in June. Childcare centers and hotels have a year to buy new cribs. The drop-side cribs aren't likely to entirely disappear. Just go to a garage sale or look at Craigslist, and you'll see plenty of drop-side cribs that have been recalled over the years.