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Family Voices
Amelia
submitted by her mother, Carolyn
In April of 1997, my eight-month old daughter, Amelia, flipped
underwater while sitting in her "Safety-1st" bath seat. I had
been using the seat for two months without any problems, and
therefore trusted the seat to support Amelia while I let go
of her to scoop a piece of lint out of the tub. As I turned
my back to Amelia and stood up (something I had never done before)
to drop the lint in the sink, I heard a "thud".
I turned around and found Amelia lying on her back, completely under
the water, still seated in her bath seat. Her big brown eyes were looking up at me
and her mouth was wide open to scream, but there was not a sound
(except for my pounding heart). I immediately pulled Amelia from the water and
held her while I waited for her to breathe. Just as I was about to start
rescue breathing, she began to cry and cough vigorously.
Then I carried her with me to the phone and called for an aid car. By the time the
aid car arrived Amelia had stopped coughing and was breathing normally. Although
my daughter experienced a quick and compete recover, I still have nightmares about
her drowning.
My advice to parents and caregivers is to use your own critical thinking skills,
and reliable their-party resources, to evaluate the safety of all children’s products.
We, as consumers, can absolutely NOT rely on manufacturers to evaluate the safety of
their own products. If such an "accident" can happen to me (a pediatric registered Nurse,
CPR instructor, former volunteer firefighter, emergency medical technician, and
obsessively safety-conscious mother, then it can happen to anyone. We ALL need to
become advocates for the safety of children. We need to take a stand and let children’s
product manufacturers know that our children are more important then their profits.
We must keep working until the system is changed so that products are adequately tested
before being sold, and unsafe products are recalled quickly and effectively.
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Amelia
Eight-month-old Amelia nearly drowned when her
Safety 1st Bath Seat flipped underwater.
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For more information, check out:
Product Hazards/Bathtub Seats
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