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Online consumers remain unaware of health risks associated with mobile infant walkers
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SAN DIEGO — Despite an AAP-recommended ban on the manufacture and sale of mobile infant walkers, due to injuries and infant development delays, online consumers continued to highly rate these devices, according to data presented here.
“The AAP warns against the use of baby walkers, secondary to both injury and developmental concerns, yet they continue to be a popular baby item,” Ruth Milanaik, DO, from the Cohen Children’s Medical Center in New Hyde Park, NY, told Infectious Diseases in Children. “Parents are especially vulnerable to advertising that depict happy babies enjoying the freedom of movement provided by their baby walkers without seeing the warnings that babies in walkers can be injured in falls and could reach dangerous items placed on previous safe surfaces.”
As infant walkers continue to be sold in the United States and remain a common product for newborns, Milanaik and colleagues examined the consumer reviews of infant walkers on five major online retailers to determine how these products were perceived by buyers.
For each of the 10 bestselling infant walkers on each site, the researchers tallied the total number of reviews (n = 5,852), the number of reviews for each rating, and, where applicable, the percentage of respondents who noted that they would recommend the product to a friend.
In addition, the researchers examined whether comments associated with a poor review mentioned that infant walkers had a negative effect on child development and were not recommended by pediatricians.
According to study results, the 10 bestselling infant walkers received high consumer ratings across the five major online retailer sites (4.4/5 stars on average), and 91.8% of consumers who purchased an infant walker noted that they would recommend one to a friend.
The researchers found that only 3.6% of reviews gave the lowest possible rating (1/5 stars); of these, 1.9% mentioned that infant walkers were detrimental to child development or that the device was not recommended by pediatricians. Furthermore, the majority of other consumers of these products (69.6%) rated these reviews, citing developmental health risks of infant walkers as ‘unhelpful.’
“Doctors need to stress these dangers and warn against baby walker use,” Milanaik said. “Companies like Consumer Reports responsibly refer clients to this AAP warning [and] ideally, we would love to see other companies follow in their footsteps. Sometimes accidents will happen, but anything we can do to decrease accidents is essential.” – by Bob Stott
Reference:
Herriman M, et al. Abstract #2864.135. Presented at: Pediatric Academic Societies 2015; April 25-28, 2015; San Diego.
Disclosure: The researchers report no relevant financial disclosures.