Nursing pillows are linked to 162 infant deaths while their parents slept just feet away, new investigation shows

• Nursing pillows have been linked to at least 162 infant deaths since 2007, after their parents fell asleep and left them unsupervised
• Some slumped down on the pillows or arched backward off of them, constricting their airways, while others suffocated
• The Consumer Product Safety Commission is now considering issuing new regulations on the popular products

Nursing pillows have been linked to at least 162 infant deaths since 2007 as their parents fell asleep nearby, a devastating new investigation has found.

Most of those babies were under four months old, while the the youngest was just three days old, according to the analysis of public records and internal federal data by NBC News.

Some slumped down on the pillows or arched backward off of them, constricting their airways, while others turned their faces into the plush surfaces and suffocated.

At least three cases involved mothers who fell asleep while feeding their baby and awoke to find they could not rouse their child.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission is now considering issuing new regulations on the popular maternity products, as an advocacy group funded by the pillow manufacturers fights back.

Nursing pillows (like the one seen here) have been linked to at least 162 infant deaths since 2007, a new study found

The horseshoe-shaped cushions are marketed as an essential item for newborns, who need to be fed frequently

The horseshoe-shaped cushions are marketed as an essential item for newborns, who need to be fed frequently.

Approximately 1.34million pillows are sold each year, according to industry estimates.

Most nursing pillows have labels against using them unsupervised or for sleep, but some have also been labeled or marketed as places for infants to practice ‘tummy time,’ laying on their stomach, or as a support for sitting or reclining.

‘The Boppy pillow is not limited to breastfeeding; it offers a range of versatile uses,’ the Boppy company writes on its website.

Critics argue that such ads may encourage mothers or other caregivers to use the pillows for sleep.

Dr. Rachel Moon,who leads the SIDS task force for the American Academy of Pediatrics, says it is the manufacturers’ responsibility to make sure their products are not deadly

Among the 162 babies who died were Sterling Gerber, who was just shy of seven months old when a daycare worker in Oklahoma set him down on a nursing pillow, and he fell asleep. The daycare center shut down in the aftermath.

William Allen Cruz Lowe was also just 19 days old in June 2021 when his mom propped him up on a nursing pillow to sleep.

He had the ‘sniffles,’ his mother Courtney McBride said, and she figured the elevated angle would help him breathe. But the boy’s father found him the next morning unresponsive.

Lowe’s cause of death was bronchopneumonia, with a medical examiner noting that the unsafe sleep environment ‘likely contributed to the demise.’ 

Dr. Rachel Moon, who leads the SIDS task force for the American Academy of Pediatrics, now says it is the manufacturers’ responsibility to make sure their products are not deadly.

‘You have to make sure that it’s going to still be safe, even if people don’t use it correctly,’ she said. ‘Because these are babies — the babies can’t protect themselves and they can’t make those decisions.’

Courtney Griffin, the director of consumer product safety for the Consumer Federation of America, added: ‘Any infant death is too many, and any number beyond that is outrageous.’

The Consumer Product Safety Commission is preparing to create new rules to make the pillows safer, with a proposal expected in the coming weeks

The CPSC had previously tried to regulate nursing pillows.

In 1992, the agency banned beanbag-like infant cushions after dozens of babies died.

By 2004, it also issued a recall of the Boston Billow pillow, which was filled with plastic beads designed to mold to the shape of a baby’s head and body.

But the company fought back, and in 2008, federal regulators reversed course and ruled that the Billow — and other ‘substantially similar’ nursing pillows — were exempt from the infant cushion ban. 

The CPSC said at the time that nursing pillows served a useful purpose and that infants were unlikely to suffocate if the pillows were used properly for breastfeeding.

Yet infants continued to die on the pillows, with a December 2019 study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention identifying 141 deaths of babies who had been set down to sleep on or with the pillows over a 12-year period.

It determined that the pillows were directly to blame for airway constriction in at least nine of the cases.

The following October, the CPSC issued a general warning against using the ‘pillow-like products’ for sleep. It mentioned that deaths were ‘possibly associated’ with the pillows’ but did not specify how many.

The agency is now once again preparing to create new rules to make the pillows safer, with a proposal expected in the coming weeks.

But the Breastfeeding Infant Development Support Alliance, which formed last year is leading a lobbying and public relations push against any regulations.

The Breastfeeding Infant Development Support Alliance, which formed last year is leading a lobbying and public relations push against any regulations

Its funders include The Boppy Company and Snuggle Me Organic, two nursing pillow makers, which have spent about $150,000 on lobbying since last year.

The group is framing their efforts as a feminist fight.

‘Women’s rights are being gutted — and the ability for women and parents to choose how to feed their baby is next on the chopping block,’ its website says.

It also warned that federal regulators want to ‘impose the will of the government over the needs of mothers,’ requiring such drastic changes that the products would have to be pulled from the market, which could ‘have a negative impact’ on breastfeeding or prompt caregivers to find makeshift solutions that could be even more dangerous.

‘It is imperative to have safe products on the market that properly assist parents in caring for their babies,’ the group said in a statement to NBC News.

It also suggested that, rather than implement new regulations on the pillows, the CPSC should ‘invest in an extensive campaign to educate consumers on safe sleep practices’ and defer to voluntary safety standards.

Meanwhile, The Boppy Company is being sued by the family of a three month old who died on a nursing pillow in New Jersey in 2020.

The family argues that Boppy and its parent company, Artsana, knew or should have known about the product’s ‘defective and unreasonably dangerous design’ but continued to sell it.

The company has denied those claims, and argued in court documents that the baby’s parents were ‘guilty of negligence, which either caused or contributed’ to their infant’s death. That court case is ongoing.

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