While it is not always easy to know if your child was injured by a defective baby product, there are symptoms and common injuries you can look out for.
Parents, relatives, and others purchase items to keep babies healthy and safe and to stimulate babies’ developing brains. Though purchasers have a right to rely on the safety of baby products, there has been an unfortunate increase in unsafe baby products in the marketplace.
Food Poisoning Symptoms
Formula is a leading cause of defective baby product injury. Sources of a baby’s nutrition could trigger allergic reactions in some babies. Food poisoning, however, is an entirely different matter. Infant food poisoning symptoms require immediate medical attention. These symptoms include:
- Bloody vomit or stools
- Persistent vomiting
- Swelling and hardness of the stomach
- Fever higher than 103 degrees Fahrenheit
- Extreme fussiness
- Decreased urination or excessive thirst
- Severe pain
- A sudden, unexplained rash
- Vomiting blood
Other Sources of Defective Baby Product Injuries
Here are other possibly defective products that can lead to injuries to a baby:
- Wearable and hand-held baby carriers
- Bassinets or cribs with sharp edges
- Cribs with insecure latches, decorative cutouts, and improperly-spaced slats
- Bedding, mattresses, and linens that create suffocation risks
- Car seats that fail to protect even when correctly installed
- Baby medication
- Fetal exposure to adult medication
- Medical devices
- Clothing that poses a strangulation risk or fails to meet flammability standards
- Strollers that lack wheel locks or tip too easily
- Toys
Toys with unreasonably sharp edges, small parts, and removable magnets can harm young children. In older children, riding toys can cause serious injuries. Safety features are sometimes missing from bicycles and scooters. Assembly-required toys can cause injury during the home assembly process.
Common Injuries from Defective Baby Products
Some common injuries from defective baby products are:
- Burns
- Intestinal blockage
- Broken bones
- Choking
- Poisoning
- Asphyxiation
- Cuts, lacerations, and even amputation
- Strangulation
- Suffocation
- Persistent pain or signs of discomfort
While injuries themselves may be readily apparent, defective products as the source of those injuries are not always easy to determine.
In the whirlwind of parenting (among other responsibilities), it can be impossible to fill out product registration cards, read manuals in their entirety, follow endless product recalls and keep up with Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) reports. Furthermore, recalls and CPSC complaints often come too late.
Establishing the cause of injuries in relation to manufacturer negligence (i.e., product liability) typically requires the analysis of engineering experts.
Causes of Defective Products
If a product was used as intended and in accordance with printed warnings but injury resulted anyway, parents and the injured child may have a product liability claim. Sometimes, even when a child was not using a product as intended, any use that a manufacturer could have foreseen might subject the manufacturer to liability.
Determining causation in a defective baby products case can be a complex matter. This process relies upon the work of experts in the fields of mechanical engineering, metallurgical engineering, and/or biomedical engineering.
Manufacturing flaws and the failure to warn are two primary bases for a product liability claim.
Manufacturing Flaws
Sometimes a flaw in design leads to a faulty product. Other times the flaw is in the manufacturing process itself. Some manufacturers make toys as inexpensively as possible without regard for U.S. safety regulations. Even with safety regulations and quality assurance mechanisms in place, errors can occur.
Failure to Warn
A manufacturer has a duty to warn of a product’s known hazards. Failure to warn the public of these dangers can be the basis of a product liability claim.
Elements of a Successful Product Liability Case
Generally, in product liability cases, the plaintiff must prove each of the following elements:
1.) The product was defective or unreasonably dangerous.
2.) The product’s defective condition existed at the time it left the domain of the defendant.
3.) The product’s defective condition was a direct cause of the plaintiff’s injuries.
Collecting Compensation With the Help of a Defective Product Lawyer
If you believe your child has suffered injuries from a defective product, get help right away. You could be entitled to compensation from the designer, product manufacturer, retailer, or wholesaler.
Not only is it important to hold a distributor accountable for your family’s losses, but taking action can also prevent additional children from suffering harm.
For a free case consultation with the Parrish Law Firm, PLLC, call 571-229-1800.
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