Imagine a new parent, soothing her baby at home, grateful for a moment of peace while her infant reclines in a cozy, contoured lounger beside her: It’s soft and portable, designed specifically for a baby’s supervised awake time — a helping hand amid the chaos of early parenthood.
Now imagine the federal government declaring this item to be too dangerous to exist.
That’s exactly what happened with the Podster, a baby lounger made by Leachco, a small family-owned business in Oklahoma.
Designed to cradle infants while they’re awake and with an adult, the Podster is not a sleeper, not a car seat, not a crib.
It’s a contoured cushion, a glorified baby pillow, meant to keep infants comfortably propped up while under a parent’s watchful eye.
Since its release in 2009 Leachco has sold over 180,000 Podsters.
When used as intended, it has a perfect safety record.
But after three infant deaths linked to serious misuse of the lounger were reported, the federal Consumer Product Safety Commission labeled the Podster a “substantial product hazard” and demanded a full recall.
In one case, the infant was left unsupervised in a crib with the Podster for over an hour. In another, it was used in an adult bed, surrounded by pillows and bedding.
In every case, the lounger was not being used according to its clear safety instructions.
There was no suggestion the Podster failed or malfunctioned.
But the CPSC argued it was “reasonably foreseeable” that some parents might ignore the warnings — making the product itself defective.
That reasoning reveals a deeper problem.
The CPSC was created in 1972 to protect Americans from dangerous products — items with clear, physical risks, like a too-small toy that poses a choking hazard or a battery-operated mobile that could overheat and catch fire.
It sets safety standards and can recall or even ban items it deems inherently hazardous.
But the agency has drifted into overreach, defining “risk” in increasingly abstract and paternalistic ways.
Picture applying the Podster standard more broadly.
Should we ban grapes because they’re a choking hazard?
Should we make backyard pools illegal because children can drown, or outlaw cars because some people don’t wear seat belts?
Obviously not — but that’s the logic at play when the CPSC targets products like the Podster or the Fisher-Price Rock ’n Play, a once-popular baby sleeper.
The CPSC linked over 30 infant deaths to that product — all in situations where babies weren’t restrained or were placed in unsafe sleep environments, despite manufacturer warnings.
These are devastating tragedies, but they’re not necessarily evidence of a defective product. They’re examples of what happens when products are misused.
Instead of educating parents about safe practices, the CPSC has leaned on the idea that any possible misuse is enough to justify a recall.
That sets an impossible standard, and one that disproportionately hurts small businesses.
Complying with federal safety regulations comes at a high cost. Big companies might absorb it.
But small firms like Leachco, run by a husband-and-wife team, often can’t.
Even a 10% increase in regulation can shrink the number of firms and reduce small-business employment, analysts have found.
And when smaller players are pushed out, competition suffers — leaving us fewer options, higher prices and less innovation.
Regulatory overreach has another cost, too: the products that are never created.
“Trying to preemptively plan for every hypothetical worst-case scenario means that many best-case scenarios will never come about,” says policy analyst Adam Thierer.
In the quest to prevent all harm, we paralyze progress.
And for what? The CPSC’s own data shows that most injuries linked to nursery products don’t stem from defects. They happen when caregivers misuse them.
High chairs, for example, consistently top the injury charts. But kids get hurt because they’re climbing, wiggling or not strapped in properly, not because the chairs themselves are dangerous.
Worse, eliminating products like the Podster doesn’t eliminate risk — it just shifts it.
Parents still need somewhere to put the baby.
Banning safe loungers leads caregivers to improvise with regular pillows or folded blankets, introducing new hazards in the name of safety.
A zero-risk world doesn’t exist.
The Podster is the poster child for bureaucratic overreach: A well-intentioned agency attacking a safe, helpful product because someone misused it.
Congress should step in. Lawmakers can direct the CPSC to define what counts as a “product defect,” and can require the agency to distinguish between genuine hazards and issues of misuse.
Clear, objective standards will protect consumers without punishing responsible parents or businesses.
Parents deserve safe products, but they also deserve the freedom to make their own choices — without a nanny-state government treating them like they can’t be trusted with a baby pillow.
Bethany Mandel writes and podcasts at The Mom Wars and is a homeschooling mother of six in greater Washington, DC.
