On November 19, 2012, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) published a voluntary recall of 220,000 Pea Pod and PeaPod Plus Travel Beds due to the December 2011 death of a 5-month old child in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The infant, after rolling to the side and the plastic lining of the tent, was found not breathing and could not be revived. The portable PeaPod and Pea Pod Plus Travel Beds are sleeping tent-type beds, manufactured in China and imported by KidCo of Libertyville, Illinois. The president of KidCo, Ken Kaiser, noted that the company had reported the death of the child while using their product to the CPSC in March 2011—and since that time had begun working with the CPSC to design a repair kit for the tents. In addition to the death of the 5-month old infant, there have been at least six reports of children in distress who became entrapped while in the tent or were found crying beneath the mattress.
The sleeping tents were originally marketed for use by infants from birth to 3 years of age and above. The tents have a zippered side to allow for placing a baby in, and taking a baby out of, the tent. An inflatable air mattress fits into a zipper pocket beneath the bottom of the tent. The recalled tents came in an array of colors, including P100-Teal, P101-Red, P102-Lime, P103-Periwinkle, P104-Ocean, P201-Princess/Red, P202-Camouflage, P203-Quick Silver, P204-Sagebrush, P205-Cardinal, and P900CS-Green. The PeaPod and PeaPod Plus Travel Tents were sold at children’s specialty stores and online by Amazon.com from January 2005 to November 16, 2012, for from $70 to $100.
According to a recent article in the Post-Gazette, December 11, 2012, Safety advocate and executive director of Kids In Danger, Nancy Cowles, says, that the remedial kit doesn’t go far enough and wished the company had offered full refunds on the returned PeaPods. The Kids In Danger organization campaigns for safer infants’ and children’s products.
Sadly, the PeaPod Travel Beds were not covered by the tenets of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008 which requires "testing and safety standards for all ‘durable infant products,’ including pack-and-plays, bassinets and full-sized cribs." (Post-Gazette) 20,000 PeaPod Tents which hadn’t been sold by last month have been removed from the marketplace shelves. Roth says that KidCo is now designing a new version of the tent to be sold in the coming months.
For photos of these recalled children’s sleeping tents, please visit the CPSC website at:
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