In  shocking announcement yesterday, Maclaren, a British luxury stroller brand, announced that it was recalling 1 million strollers – Every stroller that it has ever sold in the United States. 10 years worth of strollers.  I had heard rumors that a stroller recall was coming, but 1 million strollers?  All day yesterday, I tried off and on to go to Maclaren’s website, but their site was overloaded with traffic and I couldn’t get the page to load.  After a bit of research, it appears that when opening and closing the umbrella stroller there is a point at the middle of the stroller where little fingers can get pinched.  12 children have had their fingers amputated in the past 10 years.  This is horrifying news.  It wasn’t until I saw this video on abc.com explaining how it could happen that I understood.  When opening and closing the stroller, if a child were to have their hand on one of the bars of the stroller, at the same time it was opened or closed, it would be very easy to have a finger pinched, or worse, if their hands were in the wrong spot and subjected to the force of the collapsing stroller.  If you have a Maclaren stroller, please get your kit quickly and do not use your stroller until you have installed it.

While I am very glad that Maclaren is voluntarily offering free kits to all stroller owners, I am curious to know how long they have known about this problem.  I am surprised at how many recalls there are on products for children.  It seems like there is something very dangerous revealed all the time.  Two months ago, there was a second warning on close-sleeper convertable cribs by Simplicity. Those injuries were even more shocking as babies could potentially get caught in the crib rails and suffocate.  Two babies have already died in this crib. What is especially horrifying, is that the parent company is refusing to cooperate with the government.  They are not recalling the cribs.

It certainly is interesting to see how these two companies are handling the issue of safety very differently.  I do hope that this voluntary recall will strengthen people’s support of Maclaren and belief that this company is working hard to create safe products.  Simplicity is now out of business.  Their assets were purchased by SFCA, but reportedly, they are not responding to concerns by their customers, the government or the public.