Authorities have recalled thousands of units of infant travel beds in U.S., citing entrapment and suffocation risks to children.
Nearly 220,000 PeaPod and PeaPod Plus Travel Beds are included in the recall notice issued Friday by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) and KidCo Inc. of Libertyville.
These small and portable sleep tents are widely used for newborns and ages upto three. The tent that can be folded and easily carried has an inflatable air mattress and a zippered side.
According to the authorities, the infants can easily get entrapped between the mattress and the tent's fabric sides, increasing the risks of suffocation.
The product is associated with the death of an infant last year in New York. The five-month-old baby boy was found dead inside the tent with his face pressed against the tent's wall.
Apart from that, authorities have received nine complaints of small children entrapped inside the tent. Of the total, two infants were found lying under the mattress, crying.
The recalled tents which cost $70 (PeaPod) and $100 (PeaPod Plus) come in different colors and were sold at juvenile speciality stores across the country and online stores of Amazon.
The recall includes all the travel beds with the model numbers P100 to P104, P201 to P205 and P900CS.
Experts from CPSC urged consumers to stop using the products and contact the company to get a free repair kit.
Any complaints regarding the product can be directly reported to the Consumer Product Commission's official website- SaferProducts.gov.
