A 22-day-old baby was found cold and motionless when his mother found him. Another was a fussy two-month-old who had been unresponsive for hours after his exhausted parents put him to bed late at night. A third suffocated while lying in a cradle next to his twin brother.
An NBC News investigation found that all the babies were put to sleep on nursing pillows before they died and that their deaths were neither isolated nor inevitable.
Since 2007, at least 162 babies under the age of one have died in accidents involving nursing pillows, according to the first analysis based on hundreds of public records and internal federal data. Some babies fall backward on the pillow or arch back, causing the airways to constrict. Others turned their faces toward the plush surfaces, feeling smothered as their parents slept a few feet away.
In some cases, the cause of death is unclear, but babies have been found on or next to nursing pillows, sometimes sleeping with their parents, or next to soft bedding, which also poses a suffocation risk. At least three incidents have involved mothers who fell asleep while feeding their babies on nursing pillows, only to wake up and find themselves unable to wake their babies.
“You think, ‘Well, we can’t buy something that might not be safe for a baby.’ But we can,” says Dr. Elizabeth Murray of Golisano Children’s Hospital in Rochester, N.Y., who reports nearly every year Visit the baby. Died after being put to sleep on a nursing pillow.
Nursing pillows have become a must-have for many new parents, with 1.34 million sold annually in the U.S., according to industry estimates. The horseshoe-shaped cushions, which come in a variety of colorful patterns, are advertised as a must-have for babies in their first months of life, when babies need frequent feedings. The manufacturer says they are safe when used as intended: to help caregivers hold babies while breastfeeding or bottle feeding.
But contrary to product warning labels, unattended babies may stop breathing within minutes.
NBC News’ death toll is based on a variety of records, including consumer and local official reports reviewed by federal authorities; reports from law enforcement and medical examiners; and federal data obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests.
That figure includes deaths from suffocation or airway restriction in accidents involving nursing pillows. In some cases, other causes were listed, such as pneumonia, or the cause of death was undetermined, unexplained, or not listed, but the nursing pillow was listed as a potential factor. In most cases, there is no brand of nursing pillow specified.
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