You’ve probably seen countless magazine and news stories about safe baby products, and which ones are the safest on the market today, but from a pediatrician’s perspective, you really don’t have to stress that much.
In conjunction with September as Baby Safety Month, Dr. John LaCount, a pediatrician with St. Elizabeth Physicians’ Florence office, shares his thoughts on what’s important from a product perspective to keep your baby safe.
Crib
Your baby’s crib should have been manufactured after June 2011 to meet new federal safety requirements and shouldn’t have much in it, La Count said, meaning whatever your baby is wearing to sleep in and maybe one blankie.
Toys
Make sure your baby’s toys are age appropriate: “You wouldn’t give your baby a Barbie to play with, for example,” La Count said.
Read the box before you buy something, or, if something that isn’t age appropriate was given to your baby as a gift, just hold onto it until your baby is older.
Baby monitors
The baby monitors on the market today that can let you hear and even talk back to your baby, and that monitor your baby’s movements and room temperature are great, La Count said, but they can give you a false sense of security.
“It’s still not a substitute for being there and checking on your baby yourself,” he said. “Plus, you’re not going to get any better result than you would with a less technical (read: expensive) one.”
Baby bottles
You probably know by now that the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends avoiding baby bottles that could contain BPA, a chemical that can have harmful effects on humans, especially infants and children, but what about the baby bottle makers on the market today?
While they certainly won’t harm your baby, they aren’t helping your child learn to self-soothe, La Count said.
“At some point, we as a society have to say that kids have to go through this phase,” he said. “We’re not helping kids develop long attention spans or social skills through things like this.”
