The recent recalls of two popular stroller brands over reports of fingertip amputations appears to have exposed a deeper design flaw with all strollers with hinge mechanisms, as health officials issue warnings to parents and safety advocates urge changes to design rules.
“The number of fingertip amputations is quite high,” said Don Mays, senior director of product safety at Consumer Reports, based in Yonkers, New York. “This is not just a one off and we certainly don’t want it to happen to any more children.”
This week, Health Canada and the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission issued a recall of more than 1.5 million Graco brand strollers sold in Canada under the names Graco Passage, Alano and Spree. More than 28,000 of the strollers were sold in Canada from 2004 to 2010. U.S. officials said five children suffered fingertip amputations and two had fingertip lacerations after putting their fingers in the hinge mechanism used to open and close the stroller’s canopy.
Although Health Canada hasn’t received injury reports associated with Graco brand strollers, the department has received 22 reports of injuries related to strollers with hinge mechanisms since 2000. Five cases involved serious injury, including fingertip amputations, bone fractures and fingertip lacerations.
In November, another popular stroller brand, Maclaren, was subject of a product recall after a dozen reports of fingertip amputations emerged in the U.S. One Canadian child suffered a laceration injury from the stroller, Health Canada said.
Now, a growing number of safety experts say the design of many umbrella strollers, as well as those with a canopy, may be fundamentally flawed regardless of the manufacturer.
After the Maclaren recall, Consumer Reports decided to examine a variety of umbrella strollers in its stockroom.
“Our determination was that there are many, actually most other strollers we looked at, umbrella strollers, had very similar hazards with their hinge,” said Mr. Mays. “In fact, in some cases the hinge looked almost identical to the Maclaren [design].”
Mr. Mays said he has issued a request to ASTM International, a major standards development organization, to re-evaluate the standard for strollers to determine how to eliminate this problem.
Sears Canada said it hasn’t sold the affected Graco strollers since the beginning of 2008 and will move likely away from models with hinge mechanisms in the future.
“I think now that certainly, going forward, this is not a mechanism that we would buy for Sears stores,” said Vincent Power, director of corporate communications.
Health Canada also issued a general public warning this week about folding strollers that have a hinge mechanism. Parents need to use caution when opening and closing strollers and ensure that their children are not close by.
The department could not be reached for more information about the issues surrounding hinged strollers.
One pediatrician who focuses on product safety said this latest product recall will hit home for many because most have a false sense of security when choosing items for their children.
“It’s concerning because parents, [they think] when they buy these kinds of products, that they are child-proof,” said Claude Cyr, a pediatrician and professor at the University of Sherbrooke and member of the Canadian Paediatric Society’s injury prevention committee.
Manufacturers need to take greater responsibility for detecting design flaws, such as dangerous hinge mechanisms, Dr. Cyr said.
“Education is a good way to prevent injuries, but it’s usually not the best,” he said. “We have to engineer products to make sure it just cannot happen.”
Although Dr. Cyr said he believes most companies do place a high priority on safety, the new concerns emerging about umbrella strollers prove that parents can’t afford to take any product’s safety for granted.
“Nothing will replace surveillance by the parents,” he said. “There is no product that is 100-per-cent child-proof.”
