WASHINGTON (AP) – A children’s safety equipment manufacturer has agreed to recall about 220,000 infant travel beds after reports of one infant’s death and nine others entrapped or distressed while sleeping inside the portable tents.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission announced the recall in cooperation with KidCo Inc. early Friday after determining that infants could roll between the Pea Pod Travel Cribs’ air mattress and tents’ fabric sides, raising the danger of suffocation.
KidCo is offering kits to address the hazard. The kits include supports that strengthen the sides of the tent and a thinner air mattress. KidCo president Ken Kaiser says the kits prevent the pocket from forming.
The safety commission’s chairwoman, Inez Tenenbaum, encouraged parents to get the kit, particularly during the holidays, when parents are likely travel with children.
The recalled products, KidCo PeaPod Travel Beds and PeaPod Plus Travel Beds, are small, portable sleep tents marketed for use by infants from birth to 3-plus years, depending on the model. The tents have a zippered side for putting in and taking out the child and have an inflatable air mattress that fits into a zippered pocket underneath the floor of the tent. The travel tents were made in China and sold at independent juvenile specialty stores nationwide and online at amazon from January 2005 through the present for between $70 and $100.
For more information, consumers can call KidCo toll-free at 855-847-8600 between 9:30 a.m. and 6 p.m. EST Monday through Friday or visit the company’s website at http://www.kidco.com and click on “recall info” to receive the kit.
