An expert is calling for a ban on padded sleeping pods for infants as a coroner finds a baby's death was partly due to one.
By Anya Fielding of RNZ
A five-month-old boy died in October 2022 in Hawkes Bay. His father found him covered in blankets and unresponsive in a sleeping pod on his cot.
Coroner Meenal Duggal found the child had died from sudden infant death syndrome. Expert advice from Dr Edwin Mitchell, emeritus professor of paediatrics at the University of Auckland identified the use of a sleeping pod and blankets, and sleeping on his stomach as major risk factors in the death.
Dr Mitchell recommended banning all sleeping pods - or loungers as they are sometimes called - as they pose a risk of suffocation.
He told the inquest that safe sleep devices were wahakura and pēpi-pods.
Coroner Duggal descibed the sleeping pod used by the baby at the time of his death as "a soft mat surrounded by a soft pillow with cords at the bottom of the pillow to pull the ends of the pillow together to envelop the baby". She noted that similar sleeping pods had been recalled in the US and Ireland due to safety concerns.
She pointed to Ministry of Health guidelines that state safe sleep devices are "portable, lowsided, have rigid construction with firm sides which are not padded or soft, are compact, come with a mattress and bedding".
Manufacturer Taylorson originally questioned whether the infant had in fact been sleeping in one of its sleeping pods and said the evidence that the pod had contributed to the death was unclear. It rejected that its products bore similarities to those which had been recalled in other countries.
Taylorson denied the pods represented an "inherent or widespread danger" and said they were safe to use. It added there were no mandatory standards in New Zealand for sleeping pods.
Dr Mitchell said regardless of specifications, all sleeping pods were "a danger to infants".
He noted that the pods were marketed for sleep alongside warnings not to leave a baby unattended in the pod. He argued this was unrealistic as parents would be unlikely to move a sleeping baby if they had struggled to get the baby to sleep.
He called for a voluntary recall of sleeping pods until a ban could be enforced.
The coroner concluded that sleeping pods "are unsafe to place infants in as they can contribute to the risk of SUDI [Sudden Unexpected Death in Infancy]".
She recommended that Standards New Zealand, the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) work with the Ministry of Health to develop standards for infant sleep devices.
The Ministry of Health advised the coroner it would work with MBIE to progress a standard for infant sleep products as well as review its own guidelines.
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