One of the largest scale and most widely publicized recalls of children’s products was a play yard distributed by Kolcraft under these brand names: Carter’s, Sesame Street, Jeep, Contours, Care Bear and Eric Carle. On July 8, 2009, the CPSC announced that one million of these play sets were being recalled. The defect that led to the recall was the play yard’s side rail that, in a large number of instances, failed to latch properly, allowing children to open the rail and fall when they pushed against it. There were 347 incidents and 21 injuries reported to the CPSC in connection with this defect. Owners were sent a repair kit for the latch.
A significant sub-set of the Kolcraft play yards recalled in July, 2009 were also involved in a 2007 recall due to a looped strap on the changing table portion of the play yard that could get wrapped around the neck of a child playing in the lower area of the play yard. In 2007, Kolcraft recalled 425,000 of the play yards after receiving a report of a 10-month old child who was strangled by the looped strap. In addition to the problem of the looped strap on the changing table, one of the play yards (the Contour 3-in-1) was also recalled for a raised rocker in the play yard that a child could roll behind, become trapped and suffocate. The CPSC received 45 reports of children being trapped behind the raised rocker in the play set. There were no reports of injuries as a result of the raised rocker.