A reminder

I was looking through my Flickr album, and the pictures of Maddie in her cast, and thought I should write about what happened to her again, in hopes that it prevents another baby from getting hurt. In Novermber 2004, my daughter woke up, stood up in her toddler bed, and broke her leg. You can read the original post about it here. She caught her foot in the slats circled in red.

She then fell over the railing, and hit her knee on the floor, causing a spiral fracture of her left femur. Nate had gotten the kids up that morning, and didn't instantly realize anything was seriously wrong, he just picked her up to comfort her. When he realized she was really hurt badly, he laid her down and yelled for me. I came into my living room to find my daughter screaming, one leg an inch shorter than the other. She spent the rest of the day, and the entire night in traction at one of the best hospitals in the country, they had to keep her so doped up on morphine she was near comatose. They set her leg the next morning, in a hip spica cast.

She spent 4 weeks in that cast, my baby spent her Christmas in that awful thing. She then spent 2 weeks in a walking leg cast. We were lucky, because although the break was severe, it didn't require surgery, which could have stunted her growth plates. This entire nightmare was caused by a railing that is supposed to protect your children. Believe me when I say the 6 inch fall off the bed is much safer. These beds are still on the market, sold under the Graco name, and manufactured by Simplicity. We bought ours at Walmart, and I've seen them at the Walmart here recently. Graco did a recall on over 3 million beds in March of 2005, because of similar injuries, but because they don't MANUFACTURE this one, it was not included, and the design never changed. The CPSC sent an investigator to our home, and filed a report about Madison's injury, I called both Graco and Simplicity, but nothing was done to prevent this from happening to another child. Please, when shopping for a toddler bed for your child, do NOT buy a bed with this type of railing. Honestly, you can skip the toddler bed altogether, a twin mattress on the floor may not look as cute, but it's a lot safer. I knew at least 5 other parents who had this bed at the time of Maddie's injury, and thankfully they got rid of them after hearing what happened to my daughter. If you have one like it, please do the same!!!