CPSC Proposes New Safety Standard for Infant Inclined Sleep Products

The Consumer Product Safety Commission is proposing a new product safety standard for infant inclined sleep products. The proposed rule (here) would adopt the current voluntary industry standard for inclined sleep products, ASTM F3118-17, with a modification to the standard’s definition of accessory. That definition would be amended to remove the phrase “rigidly framed” so that the standard will include recently identified soft-sided products that attach to cribs and play yards, CPSC said. Comments on the proposed standard are due June 21.

The proposed standard would cover any “free standing product with an inclined sleep surface primarily intended and marketed to provide sleeping accommodations for an infant up to 5 months old or when the infant begins to roll over or pull up on sides, whichever comes first,” CPSC said. Potentially covered products “must be primarily intended and marketed to provide sleeping accommodations,” it said. “The product must have at least one inclined sleep surface position that is greater than 10 degrees, but less than or equal to 30 degrees.” The ASTM standard CPSC is proposing to adopt also provides that inclined sleep products that can be converted into a product covered by another ASTM safety standard must meet the requirements of both standards.

The proposed standard would also cover newborn inclined sleep products, compact inclined sleep products, and inclined sleep product accessories. Under the ASTM standard proposed for adoption, a newborn inclined sleep product is a “smaller product intended for newborns up to 3 months old or when newborn begins to wiggle out of position or turn over in the product or weighs more than 15 lb (6.8 kg), whichever comes first,” CPSC said. A compact inclined sleep product is “a free standing infant or newborn inclined sleep product having a distance of 6.0 in. or less between the underside of the lowest point on the seat bottom and the support surface (floor).” The ASTM standard defines “infant and newborn inclined sleep product accessories” as products “which are attached to, or supported by, another product with the same age or abilities, or both, as the free standing products.”

(Federal Register 04/07/17)