TARGET STOPS SELLING SUPPLEMENTAL BABY MATTRESSES

MINNEAPOLIS — Target announced it will stop selling supplemental baby mattresses following repeated requests from non-profit organization Keeping Babies Safe (KBS) to remove the product that poses suffocation hazards.

The national retailer joins Toys R Us, Sears, Kmart, Buy Buy Baby and Wayfair who have already removed these products in their stores and online. Meanwhile, other major retailers such as Walmart and Amazon have, to date, continued selling the product.

Supplemental mattresses are mattresses sold individually for use with cribs, play pens and play yards. According to U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission data from 2000 through 2013, at least 15 children died while sleeping on supplemental mattresses. These deaths involved a child being wedged between gaps created when the supplemental mattress was added to the play yard or portable crib.

The voluntary standard, ASTM F406-13, acknowledges this risk with a warning label telling parents not to use these mattresses and instructing consumers to only use the original mattress pad contained in the play yard package.

On Dec. 19, the New Jersey General Assembly voted unanimously to prohibit the sale of the supplemental mattresses designed for children’s products.

Warren, N.J.-based KBS has a petition docketed with the U.S. Consumer Products Safety Commission seeking a nationwide ban of the products. Public comment for the petition was 99% in favor of the ban, with mattress manufacturers as the primary opponent.