For the uninitiated, here is the Boppy Lounger has been used, by many new parents, as a place for their baby to … lounge. Chill out. See what’s going on around them. It’s the same company but not the same product as the Boppy Pillow, which I had several of and which I occasionally used as a lounger.
The lounger is very popular. An estimated 3.3 million have been sold since 2004.
The Boppy Lounger was recalled two weeks ago by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) after reports of eight deaths of infants while in the lounger. The exact circumstances of these tragic events aren’t made clear in the CPSC report, but they largely seem to involve situations in which an infant was left sleeping unsupervised in the lounger.
In light of this recall, I want to focus on the question of how parents should react. There are reasonable people who have asked questions like: Does the recall make sense given the tiny numbers? Is it consistent with other recalls? Good questions, but not for right now.
On the more narrow topic of parental response, I think there are really three questions of interest.
Should I get a Boppy Lounger now?
You can’t; they stopped selling them. So don’t worry about it.
My kid is 2, and I used a Boppy Lounger all the time. I feel so guilty.
Don’t. Everything is fine. Worry about something else!
I have a Boppy Lounger and a small baby; should I stop using it? (Related: I used it with my first, and now my second is due. Should I throw it away?)
This is the only decision-relevant question. I think the answer is “It depends.”
The lounger isn’t intended as an unsupervised sleep location, and there is no evidence that it carries risks when being used as advertised, supervised by an adult. If that is your use case, it’s not clear that the recall should make you more anxious.
On the other side, this isn’t the safest sleep environment for infants. If you are using it as a primary sleep environment, it likely does make sense to stop, even independent of the recall.
It is also true, though, that babies can fall asleep when they are lounging. A common use case for many parents is to sit infants in a Boppy, where they occasionally fall asleep and, perhaps sometimes, are left for short periods unsupervised. This is the behavior the recall is designed to avoid, but the fact is that the risks associated with this remain extremely small. Some people will react by getting rid of their lounger, and others will not. And both choices seem reasonable to me.
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