Angelcare Mat Recalled in U.S.

FunkSoulSista

The angelcare mat has been recalled in the US due to 2 babies dying from cord strangulation. They're not being recalled in Europe though, you can request a cord cover though, more information on Angelcare UK website

http://edition.cnn.com/2013/11/22/health/baby-monitor-recall/

brightkane

Tragic that any baby dies but surely if you used common sense this wouldnt happen? We have one under our moses basket and I cut a small hole to out the cord through its base. The only alternative is to leave it dangle over the basket which would be stupid as the baby can pull it over itself.

Anyone else do the same?

FunkSoulSista

brightkane wrote: »

Tragic that any baby dies but surely if you used common sense this wouldnt happen? We have one under our moses basket and I cut a small hole to out the cord through its base. The only alternative is to leave it dangle over the basket which would be stupid as the baby can pull it over itself.

Anyone else do the same?

Yeah exactly, instructions say to wrap around cot leg, when we had Moses basket we fed the wire through the base of it.

pwurple

Yes, we cable-tied the chord to the cot leg so it can't be grabbed by a baby. I think that's reason it isn't recalled here, the insutructions about keeping chord away from baby are on the uk version.

vibe666

it's tragic that any child has died, but they died due to the stupidity and recklessness of their parents, not because of anything wrong with the angelcare monitors, which are excellent and have served thousands of people well and have undoubtedly saved hundreds (or possibly thousands) of lives in the 13 years they have been on sale.

SIDS is still a very real problem and this is a very effective preventative measure to warn parents, as well as being a very good baby monitor and as someone who has two of them, i would have no hesitation in recommending them to any parent.

dub_skav

vibe666 wrote: »

it's tragic that any child has died, but they died due to the stupidity and recklessness of their parents, not because of anything wrong with the angelcare monitors, which are excellent and have served thousands of people well and have undoubtedly saved hundreds (or possibly thousands) of lives in the 13 years they have been on sale.

SIDS is still a very real problem and this is a very effective preventative measure to warn parents, as well as being a very good baby monitor and as someone who has two of them, i would have no hesitation in recommending them to any parent.

Have you any proof for any of this undoubted saving of lives that you cite?

It sounds to me like a poorly designed product. Any product that requires a cable to be inside a cot is a bad idea.
Could they not have used a battery pack or wireless for whatever the cable does?

vibe666

dub_skav wrote: »

Have you any proof for any of this undoubted saving of lives that you cite?

It sounds to me like a poorly designed product. Any product that requires a cable to be inside a cot is a bad idea.
Could they not have used a battery pack or wireless for whatever the cable does?

fairly obvious trolling attempt, but sure i'll bite anyway.

as a matter of fact I do have proof. we all do. SIDS is still a very real risk to infants the world over and after avoiding all the standard issues that increase the chances of SIDS happening (not smoking whilst pregnant, safe bedding, sleeping on their backs etc.) the single greatest aid in preventing SIDS happening is knowing when a child stops breathing and getting to them quickly to allow you to act, and the angelcare monitors allow you to do that as an alarm will sound if your child stops breathing for more than 30 seconds.

my nephew very nearly died from SIDS and it was only a combination of pure blind luck (his mother waking in the middle of the night and going in to check on him and finding him not breathing in the cot) and my brother's extensive CPR training kicking in automatically when he heard her screaming and came running in to resuscitate him until paramedics arrived that saved his life.

if those two things hadn't been the case he would be dead right now.

infant CPR should be a requirement for all new parents, but that issue aside, the angelcare monitor will ensure that if the worst happens, you will know about it right away and can get to them in time to save them.

and no, it's not poorly designed. the main unit can be battery powered, but the batteries will only last a couple of nights, so it's meant to be the exception, rather than the rule to use them (i.e. in a power cut or out camping etc.).

the sensor pad is only about as thick as a CD case, so it would be impractical to have it battery powered as you could not use standard batteries and they would wear out too frequently. you would also have two extra potential points of failure in the sensor batteries and in the wireless connection between the sensor and the base station.

also, the wire should not be in the cot as is very clearly stated in both the the instructions for the device and the device itself. the sensor pad is designed to be placed UNDER the mattress and they specifically tell you to run the wires underneath the cot/bed so they are never visible or reachable by your child.

dub_skav

You obviously feel very strongly about this and care very much, but I resent your trolling accusation.
I am a father, trained first aider and cardiac first responder, not that any of that is relevant, but you did mention CPR training.

The fact remains that SIDS is an exclusionary diagnosis, so nobody knows what causes it.

Your proof above is conjecture based on emotional reasoning, not proof.

Regardless of positioning of the wires, they by necessity must be "in" the cot, or else they are not connected to the mat. You can obviously minimise - but not eliminate - this risk.

As I say you seem to feel strongly and I understand that this is an emotive topic, but I do not like when people (mostly the manufacturers in this case) portray something as a panacea for something that is not well enough understood to offer any substantive proof.

vibe666

if you don't like being accused of trolling, have you considering being a bit less troll-like in your posts? i'm sure it would reduce the accusations and leave you a lot happier.

you don't have to know the root causes of SIDS to do everything you can to minimise the risks by taking the information we DO know and putting that to good use.

as a first aider and cardiac responder you know yourself that when someone (anyone, infant, child or adult) stops breathing, the single most important thing you can do to increase their chances of survival is that someone gets to them as quickly as is humanly possible.

if you have X number of infants who stop breathing every year at random times throughout the night how many of them would survive if the parents were unaware for 30, 60 or even 90 minutes or longer between checking them?

how many more will survive if the parents are made aware of it 30 seconds after they stop breathing?

no, i can't tell you numbers, but it really doesn't matter when it saves lives and you know damn well that it DOES save lives simply from the fact that you know how important it is to get to a child who has stopped breathing as fast as possible to increase their chances of survival.

my two year old son is the size of a 5 year old and he still as the sensor pad under his cot bed and he has no idea it is even there and no way to get to it as it is underneath the mattress sitting on the wooden slats of underside of the cotbed.

for him to get to it, he would actually have to levitate off the bed and lift the mattress out of the bed with the strength of a 10 year old as the mattress is heavy.

the wire for the sensor pad is taped to the slats and to the back of the cotbed out of reach and the base station is up out of his way too, plugged into a plug socket behind the cot that he would have to physically move the cot to get to and would then have to remove about 6 feet of duct tape to get to the wire.

if he stops moving for more than 30 seconds (inc. breathing) an alarm goes off.
if the parent unit loses its connection to the base station, an alarm goes off.
if the temperature in the room drops above OR below a pre-defined level, an alarm goes off.
if he wakes in the night and cries out, the audio is transmitted to the parent unit.

this is the best selling baby monitor in the world, and for good reason, and when used the way it is supposed to be used it is 100% safe, but you simply cannot make any product that can account for the stupidest people on the planet, regardless of what it is.

dub_skav

You are talking about respiratory arrest, not SIDS. That much is clear. I'll get back under my bridge now and stop offending people. Bye

pwurple

dub_skav wrote: »

Regardless of positioning of the wires, they by necessity must be "in" the cot, or else they are not connected to the mat. You can obviously minimise - but not eliminate - this risk.

The way we have it set up... The mat is under the mattress, and the wire comes out the base of the cot immediately. I have it cable tied to the leg of the cot and tacked to the wall by the socket next to the cot. There is approx 5mm of wire 'in' the cot, and that's under a mattress that the baby is lying on. Not possible to strangle anyone with 5mm of wire.

As I say you seem to feel strongly and I understand that this is an emotive topic, but I do not like when people (mostly the manufacturers in this case) portray something as a panacea for something that is not well enough understood to offer any substantive proof.

I actually agree with you. Vibe666 is overstating the benefit of these. We have had a cot death in our own family, and I hope to god I never experience it again in my lifetime. There is nothing that prepares you for that one morning. But whether this prevents them? As the cause is unknown, it's to hard to say. You are correct, there is certainly no proof.

I do have the monitor myself, but it's more for our own sanity I think. The monitor gives peace of mind, just in the fact that it's not blaring, so we don't have to sit over a cot watching 24 hours a day to make sure a baby is still breathing in and out until they are 2 years of age. But it is of course impossible to prove if it has done anything beyond provide that ease of mind, when you also follow every other piece of SIDS risk reduction advice.

vibe666

dub_skav wrote: »

You are talking about respiratory arrest, not SIDS. That much is clear. I'll get back under my bridge now and stop offending people. Bye

it's totally irrelevant what the cause is, you can call it whatever you like. the only pertinent information in relation to the sensor pads is "has this child moved or taken a breath in the last 30 seconds?".

the simple fact is, for whatever reason, thousands of children die in their beds at night and the parents are unaware they are in trouble until it is too late.

maybe getting to them quickly is what saves them, maybe it isn't, but any parent would want to know that they did everything possible to at least have the opportunity to try and save their child's life if the worst comes to the worst and the angelcare monitor does that.

maybe it's SIDS, maybe they've somehow smothered themselves, or have been sick in their sleep and choked on their own vomit, maybe it's something else, but the cause is largely irrelevant.

IF, a child DOES stop breathing and that alarm goes off, i 100% guarantee that the parents will be by their bedside quicker than they have ever been in their lives and how quickly they are made aware of a potential problem and consequently how quickly they get there is likely to be the single biggest contributing factor to how the rest of that night plays out.

i have two currently in use and the small cost of the devices versus the peace of mind they give is worth it 100 times over and i'll be delighted if it turns out that i never actually have a real need for the sensor pads in the same way that i'm not ever going to feel ripped off that i wore my seatbelt every time i got into the car if i go the rest of my life without ever having an accident.