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Proper safety engineering accounts for human factors. Blaming the parents is improper. Safety-critical fields like aviation assume that trained, certified pilo

by lmkg 8y ago

Proper safety engineering accounts for human factors. Blaming the parents is improper. Safety-critical fields like aviation assume that trained, certified pilots are fallible and design their systems to be resilient against human error. This is a product design to be sold to and used by not just laypeople, but laypeople who have probably only gotten four hours of sleep in the last four weeks.

Someone1234 8y ago
Well stated. There's two kinds of parents: Those who have left their child asleep unattended in a Rock 'N Play for a few minutes, and liars. If you design a product aimed particularly at new sleep deprived parents, you have to assume imperfect usage. And a product that a baby can sleep in will be left unattended for a few minutes, that's just a fact of life. The doorbell will ring, you'll make lunch, you'll put in the laundry, go bathroom, whatever it is. You aren't going to wake up a sleeping baby every time you step out of the room momentarily. And this coming from a big fan of the Rock N' Play.
tachyonbeam 8y ago
Have to agree here. We're talking about potentially avoidable deaths. Blaming the parents won't help, parents will keep doing things like this. I don't think they realized it could mean their child dying.
- macspoofing 8y ago
  The product doesn't lead to children dying. It increases the risk of a certain type of fatality when used improperly, with the overall odds still being miniscule. And yes, parents have to take some responsibility. Nothing will ever be 100% safe.
ip26 8y ago
How do you engineer away the ability to put blankets in a rocker, or crib for that matter? Aviation tackles a lot of this with rigorous checklists, drilling, and constant ongoing training. They don't just design the plane to be impossible to fly wrong.
- blub 8y ago
  Engineering the rocker/crib out of existence is a valid solution if it's prone to misuse and that's what they did.

by lmkg 8y ago

Someone1234 8y ago

Well stated. There's two kinds of parents: Those who have left their child asleep unattended in a Rock 'N Play for a few minutes, and liars. If you design a product aimed particularly at new sleep deprived parents, you have to assume imperfect usage. And a product that a baby can sleep in will be left unattended for a few minutes, that's just a fact of life. The doorbell will ring, you'll make lunch, you'll put in the laundry, go bathroom, whatever it is. You aren't going to wake up a sleeping baby every time you step out of the room momentarily. And this coming from a big fan of the Rock N' Play.

tachyonbeam 8y ago

Have to agree here. We're talking about potentially avoidable deaths. Blaming the parents won't help, parents will keep doing things like this. I don't think they realized it could mean their child dying.

macspoofing 8y ago
The product doesn't lead to children dying. It increases the risk of a certain type of fatality when used improperly, with the overall odds still being miniscule. And yes, parents have to take some responsibility. Nothing will ever be 100% safe.

ip26 8y ago

How do you engineer away the ability to put blankets in a rocker, or crib for that matter? Aviation tackles a lot of this with rigorous checklists, drilling, and constant ongoing training. They don't just design the plane to be impossible to fly wrong.

blub 8y ago
Engineering the rocker/crib out of existence is a valid solution if it's prone to misuse and that's what they did.