Deaths prompt baby bath-seat alert

By REBECCA WALSH

Child safety group Safekids is warning parents not to use infant bath seats because they pose an unreasonable risk of injury and death to children.

The lobby group says two New Zealand infants, whose families were using bath seats, drowned while in the bath and overseas concern is growing about their safety following the deaths of dozens of babies.

Safekids policy analyst Julie Chambers said a review of overseas research showed that when a baby was in a bath seat caregivers often had a false sense of security, believing they could leave their child unattended. But the infant could tip the seat over or slip out and if the caregiver had left the bathroom the child could drown.

In March Auckland coroner Dr Murray Jamieson found 1-year-old Aucklander Raquel Brown died by drowning when the swivel bath seat she was in became dislodged.

Raquel was left "playing happily" while her mother, Annette, went to feed her twin, Geordana. About 20 minutes later Mrs Brown returned to the bathroom and found her daughter motionless under the water.

Yesterday Mrs Brown advised other parents who wanted to use the bath seats never to leave their children unattended.

"I was completely naive to the fact of how they could be unsafe ... they seemed to enjoy it and I came to rely on them to have my hands free to do other things. I figured they were a safe piece of equipment to keep them restrained," she said.

Dr Jamieson said the seat had a label warning that the child should never be left unattended.

"There is a danger that users of these seats may be lulled into a false sense of security, however, and feel able to ignore the clear warnings. Infants should never be left unattended in the bath."

A baby bath seat was intended to hold and support a baby in a sitting position leaving the adults hands free. They were made from a plastic ring with three or four attached legs and a moulded plastic seat. Suction caps attached the seat to the bath tub surface.

Ms Chambers said Safekids was not saying that bath seats caused the drownings but that using them incorrectly or the false perception that infants were safe while using them made them a potential danger.

In America the US Consumer Product Safety Commission was aware of 78 deaths and 110 non-fatal incidents and complaints involving bath seats and rings between January 1983 and May 2001.

Ms Chambers said the bath seats, which cost about $30, had been available since the mid-1980s and were mostly imported from America but it was difficult to track their distribution and availability.

Safekids had told the Ministry of Consumer Affairs of its concerns.

A ministry spokeswoman said baby bath seats and their safe use would be discussed at the next transtasman meeting of product safety officials in early October.