I have two kids, 9 and 6 (who I blog about every so often), and when they were very young they were either contained in a safe area or supervised by a responsible adult.

Unfortunately, responsible adults are a growing rarity, and setting regulations about cord length is noxious but necessary.

Sometimes bad things happen even when people are careful. That is life and you can't legislate it away. I speak as a parent also.

"I'm not going to risk the lives of children just so (companies) can have their products out and make money," said Kaiser, whose 1-year-old daughter, Cheyenne, strangled in her crib in 2002 after she got caught in the inner cord of blinds near her crib.

How about moving the crib AWAY from the window where the blinds were??? Where the hell has common sense gone?? Unless there was a window on EVERY wall in the kid's room, there is no excuse for this.

Another simple solution - use curtains instead. We only have one window in the house that has a pull-cord on its covering, and we keep that thing looped up around the very top out of reach of our kids - even when they're standing on a chair. Hopefully, by the time he's tall enough to reach it, my son will have developed sufficient common sense to not wrap it around his neck.

"and setting regulations about cord length is noxious but necessary."

No, they're not necessary.

My deepest prayers to the family, just too bad they weren't smart enough.

This is tacky. As Lizzie said, bad things can happen even if parents are careful. As just about every parent has said, "I just turned my back for one second..."

The answer, of course, is not regulation or banning cords, and it's also tacky for Kaiser to try to invoke the spectre of evil, profit-first capitalist running dogs rather than simply that long cords are rather convenient and useful.

We have a toddler, and we have blinds. We just keep the cord out of reach. In her room, she has curtains, not blinds.

It does seem like children, once they're old enough to be mobile, are absolutely determined to kill or maim themselves. (Mine is currently obsessed with climbing on the coffee table, amoung other things. Oh, and she tried to grab a wasp the other day while we were playing in the garden.)

We can't legislate everything out of existence that could hurt a child- the world will never be made out of plastic and foam.

Good to see we have here an example of a woman who screwed up, was insufficiently vigilant, and rather than acknowledging that life is a series of accidents, mistakes, screw-ups, and unwarranted bad things -- and is therefore precious because it is precarious -- she's going to go vent her spleen by finding people who should have kept her from being stupid.

People don't want freedom, and it's a particular inclination of women to not want freedom, to the point that is remarked - probably most notably by Ann Coulter, although lots of people have noticed it - women's suffrage led in two generations everywhere to nanny-state controls and bloated government "safety" programs.

And, what Astra said. "My deepest prayers to the family, just too bad they weren't smart enough," That's really ugly. It's in the same vein as, "Not to be rude, but (now I'm going to say something really rude.)"

I DON'T think that evey little thing that could possibly ever hurt a child is something that "common sense" tells us.

A freak accident (about 12 /yr out of what 30 million kids). Don't let a tragety become a horrendously stupid law.

People need to stop and think, and not just let emotional craziness make laws.

Going with how paranoid the laws are now it's a wonder how any of us made it through childhood.
Bycicle helmets, child safety seats? We played with knives, hikes through the woods. Climbed trees.

Freakenomics has good info on how little, even the pretty much universally acceppted car seats, have done in saving kids.

I remember going through this when our kids were youg. I cut the cords in two and tied each one in a knot. My husband thought it was dumb and knotted them together again. After about 6 "repairs" I cut them into pieces until we got new window coverings.

I don't see why manufacturers don't just "fix" this. I don't see it costing more or affecting the use of the product. There shouldn't have to be a law.

When I was 12 my 3 y.o. brother died at the sitters. It was an accident, and my mom did not blame anyone. Yes it was a very hard time for us all but there was no suing, no blaming anyone or anything other than it was a freak accident. People really need to quit blaming everyone and everything else for the things that happen. The labels on products now.. well reading those warnings make me laugh most of the time, as it seems they think we are all so stupid! (and I realize it's people who were stupid that made the labels mandatory - but come on where is common sense???? and the all important .. personal responsibility!?)

At minimum, the first 3 years of parenting is one long suicide watch. We have miniblinds on every window in the house, and 4 young kids. I merely knotted them up, a knot every 2 inches, and also loop them up where they theoretically can't be reached. I also have-gasp-a drop side crib.

My philosophy on childproofing was 1) eliminate things that can kill quick (electrical outlets, falls from the second story, poisoning with cleaners) and 2) lower the number of times I have to say no (putting breakables up, etc). Number 2 was just for my sanity. Number 1 seems like it should be parenting 101.

I am so tired of laws, I've really stopped paying attention to any of them, and live as I see fit.

My parents, nor I, never baby proofed anything in our house. For some reason, any attempt to baby proof, would be the cause to go figure out how to take it apart. My son, at three, could barely reach the door, but could easily manipulate the door to open it through the "baby proofed" door knob, while the adults struggled every time we tried to open the door. He regularly took the baby proofing covers off of the outlets, but as soon as I removed them, they stopped being of interest to him. And the cabinet hooks for the "dangerous liquids"... I would regularly find all of our lower cabinets opened... anyone he could reach, including the cleaning supplies. I never removed those, but I had to work more diligently to keep him out of the kitchen.

I watch my kids. If a cord seems to be in the way, I move them. I try my best to put anything out of the way that can be dangerous. Most of the time, it's preventable. Other times, it's not. Should I then sue the Safety 1st (I think that's the company name that manufactures most of these products) because my toddler can remove their product? Where does the legislation and litigation stop?

I'm also a parent who's had a child die, in the hospital from an infection. I could've sued the hospital (just because, even though they didn't actually do anything wrong, it was a series of awful circumstances). Ultimately, it wouldn't bring back my son. Years of litigation would not help me heal or anything else.

There's another way.

Your toddler is curious, but when they find out what they need to know, they'll stop. This continues for a few years - it's not confined to the first 2 or 3.

My Dad noticed I was careless around electrical drop cords and outlets - I would play in their vicinity. Since we owned a marina at the time, he had a simple remedy. He pulled an outlet apart so I could see what was in it - but then, to demonstrate that electricity was bad news, he started the winch engine in the shop (for the marine railway, a 6-cylinder flathead Chrysler) and told me that if I wanted to see what it felt like, to touch a spark plug, it wouldn't hurt me like the outlet could.
Oh, no. Not me, no way!
That lesson stuck. I'm amazed by people who take electricity for granted to this day.

Now, of course, Pop'd be sentenced to lethal injection for that lesson.

Jen,
Sadly, most designers and makers of household products are inert to the point of being allergic to smart decisions. It wouldn't occur to them to make a product that couldn't kill their customers.

"It wouldn't occur to them to make a product that couldn't kill their customers."

You're kidding, right?

Because a big chunk of the cost of any household product is the liability insurance.

Check the recall list at Toys-R-Us.

Meanwhile, they make what the public wants. If you're fighting stupidity, start... ummm... at home.

Cords on window blinds and shades have been a known strangulation hazard for decades

And yet people are always suprised

So 200 deaths in 20 yrs = 10 death per year
Which requires government intervention and government funded consumer saftey advocasey groups, yet 117 deaths a year directly attributed to infant cosmetic surgery (not counting those deaths not "directly" attributed plus the cases of physical scarring) is a 'personal' choice by parents

Regarding electricity, when my oldest little brother was about two we were over at my grandparents house, he had found a penny and was trying to put it in a plug. His mother told my dad to make him stop, mad dad told him to stop.

Given the way she had raised my brother he felt more than comfortable ignoring our father. A few seconds later there was this wizz-thump noise. My brother was on the other side of the room, the penny was split in half. He didnt ignore our dad for the next few yrs, and till he was eightteen his hair looked like Albert Einsteins in that photo

When I buy a lamp, I have to spend 15 minutes removing all the warning stickers that are in 3 languages from the first 2-3 feet of the cord.

First because they look like hell.
Second because my cats won't leave them alone.

I've got warnings on my warnings lately, and it's annoying as hell.

I never felt the urge to put a fork in an outlet. Maybe it's because my parents let me take apart a battery powered radio.

Hey Amy, didnt you link a story out of Scottland where the local government wanted a local sausage maker to put warning labels on their product that sausage contained meat, and that no acctual dragons were killed to make the sausage?

Of course there are many more people dying of Dihydro Monoxide overdoses every day.

http://www.dhmo.org/facts.html

And there's no public outcry, no governmental interference, no Nanny State SWOOPING down to SAVE us!

Yes, it's a joke. But this is where we are heading. Your backyard swimming pool is next, you watch.....

Whoops, forgot my ./SARC :D

This is why my old assistant, who became a mom, said you couldn't even go to the bathroom alone when you have a young kid.

Bathroom? My sister, 8 years younger than me, was playing on the edge of the pool when she was toddling stage, two or three years old. Had a plastic container she was filling with water to make mud pies or whatever. My mom, brother, and I were all out there, only a few feet away. The weight of the container of water pulled her in, and I swear she went under without a sound - no splash, no cry. I spotted it out of the corner of my eye and went in after her, closely followed by my brother. We found her on the bottom of the deep end, nappy dragged her down. If we'd been distracted for a couple of minutes...well, you can see how drownings happen.

But how exactly would laws on fencing pools have stopped this?

Free range babies, not so much

Aww, free range babies are nice as long as you don't overcook them.

Easiest way is rotisere, help cook off all that fat without getting any one side too hot

Advice Goddess,

I find it sad that you point the finger at parents without even knowing all the facts. Parents have followed safety tips by tying up pull cords out of reach only to find their children hanging by OTHER AREA on the window covering. HELLO! Really it's not about hanging cords that parents fail to put out of reach. It's about children gaining access to cords tied up high, other hidden cords on the product that were pull and formed a loop. You can cut the cords, tie up the cords but you WON"T have a SAFE home with CORDS in your home. Please, educate yourself by looking at our videos online. There you will see that tying up pull cords is NOT a child proof solution. CPSC would NOT ask for Industry to eliminate the hazard if the problem was misuse. This is a design issue, not a parental issue.