Officials from the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) and children’s products maker Fisher-Price announced recalls of two Fisher-Price products in the first week of June 2021. The products, the 4-in-1 Rock ’n Glide Soother and 2-in-1 Soothe ’n Play Gliders, have been removed from the market after four infants died while using the 4-in-1 Rock ’n Glide Soother.

The infants were said to have been laid on their backs inside the products without restraint. They were later found on their stomachs. The children involved were two two-month-old children, a four-month-old, and an 11-week-old, and their deaths occurred between April 2019 and February 2020. There have been no fatalities reported in the 2-in-1 Soothe ’n Play Gliders.

Acting CPSC Chairman Robert Adler said, “These types of incidents are heart-breaking. Loving parents put their babies in these products never expecting a tragedy. Inclined products, such as gliders, soothers, rockers and swings are not safe for infant sleep, due to the risk of suffocation.”

Fisher-Price recently launched a Safe Start campaign and created a medical and scientific council. The campaign is “focused on engaging parents and caregivers in important conversations about the safety, health, and development of babies and children.”

Fisher-Price recalled its Rock ’n Play baby sleepers in 2019 after more than 30 infant deaths were reported over the previous ten years. The company claimed that those deaths occurred because the product was used “contrary to safety warnings and instructions.” More than 4.7 million devices were recalled.

In the current recall, 145,000 soothers and 82,000 gliders in the U.S. and Canada were affected. Fisher-Price stopped selling the soother in December, and the glider in May.

William Wallace is the manager of safety policy at Consumer Reports. He described the situation as “appalling.” He said, “Fisher-Price kept selling inclined products that it marketed as a way to help get infants to sleep, even after it recalled the dangerous Rock ’n Play sleeper. Now we’ve learned four babies died in the span of just 10 months in another product, causing unimaginable pain for their families. The behavior of Fisher-Price and its parent company, Mattel, yet again raises serious doubts about their commitment to safety.”

Kids in Danger’s Nancy Cowles, executive director, said, “This is a long-standing concern of ours with products like this that kind of blur the line between asleep and awake.” Kids in Danger is a non-profit group concerned with the safety of products for children.

She went on to say, “We just wish that these products were made in such a way that they either were not used for sleep because the design discouraged it or were safe for sleep, and not this in-between one where if you leave a baby sleeping in it they could get themselves in an unsafe position and suffocate.”

Chuck Scothon, Fisher-Price’s general manager, said, “There is nothing more important to Fisher-Price than the safety of our products and the trust that families put in us…We are committed to educating parents and caregivers on the safe use of all of our products, including the importance of following all warnings and instructions to ensure the health and safety of babies and children.”

In a separate announcement two days earlier, the CPSC advised it has approved a new federal safety standard for infant sleep products. These new regulations will not come into play for a year.

Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney, D-NY, chairs the House Committee on Oversight and Reform. She said “The company never should have released these dangerous products to the public, and this appears to be part of a troubling pattern of Mattel selling products that pose serious risks to infants. The Oversight Committee has been investigating this issue for nearly two years, and next week the company’s CEO will testify before the Committee and explain why his company appears to have put profits over people.”

The Committee issued a press release about its investigation that said, in part, “Today’s staff report is damning. The Committee’s investigation shows how corporate greed and weak federal oversight led to the deaths of dozens of babies in an unsafe product.” The staff report findings included that Fisher-Price didn’t get input from any pediatricians or take other steps to ensure the Rock ’n Play design was safe before releasing it to the public, that it ignored warnings from regulators, pediatricians and customers that the product was dangerous and marketed it for overnight sleep even though they knew of the risks, and that during the decade Fisher-Price was able to keep this product on the market because of poor federal oversight, more than fifty infants died using the product while the company made at least $200 million in revenue.

A hybrid hearing with Mattel’s CEO and Fisher-Price’s top executive was to be held to address flaws in the U.S. consumer product safety system and to examine the findings from the Committee’s investigation.