A very common safety concern when parents consider how to set up their baby crib furniture bedding is whether or not to use crib baby bumpers.

When it comes to this style of bedding for baby crib furniture, a 2005 study by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission regarding crib baby bumpers found that over 20 years, from 1985 to 2005, twenty-seven children aged one month to two years suffocated or were strangled by crib baby bumper pads or bumper pad ties. Aside from deaths, the study also found that there were a total of twenty-five injuries caused by bumpers or their ties.

What the study doesn't make clear are the circumstances of those injuries or deaths caused by crib baby bumpers, and whether they might have been related to how the child was positioned for sleep, their general strength or whether they suffered from underlying medical conditions. Considering that twenty seven deaths over twenty years indicates one or two incidents a year, the possibility that other factors could have been involved in these cases is strong.

Most parents today now understand that there are many safety concerns regarding older baby crib furniture, such as slots that are too large and might allow the baby's head to slip through, resulting in serious injury or death. However, when it comes to finding bedding for baby crib furniture, the safety concerns of the "professionals" sometimes seem a bit overboard. Newer baby crib furniture is manufactured with ultimate safety in mind, with slots that are now too small for a baby's head to pass through.

The study, which analyzed three U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission databases for deaths related to crib bumper and crib-related injuries from 1985 to 2005, found that 27 children from 1 month to 2 years old died from suffocation or strangulation related to bumper pads or their ties. The study also found 25 nonfatal injuries attributed to bumpers. Crib baby bumpers also come in styles that have certain features with safety in mind as well. Most have ties that are on the outside of the crib that get tied onto the baby crib furniture post, and the only case where you wouldn't want to use a crib baby bumper is where the child is so frail and weak that they can not even roll themselves around inside the crib. New parents have enough to worry about, and crib baby bumper safety should not be one.