What's wrong with this picture?
Instead of sleeping, dreaming, say, of sugarplums, your adorable tots are downstairs, waiting for Santa Claus. Exploring, they've just discovered the cache of matches you keep near the fireplace. They're dressed for the holidays in the cute, pastel cotton T-shirts and leggings their grandparents purchased on a whim in the children's sleepwear section of the local department store.
Unattended children. Matches. Nonregulation sleepwear. A recipe for tragedy.
Fire safety is an important issue for every family. In addition to knowing what to do if there is a fire - where the available exits are, how to use them quickly, and how to extinguish a clothing fire - children should be taught not to play with matches, lighters, candles, stoves, ovens, space heaters, or any other device capable of producing sparks or flame. Each year, hundreds of fire-related accidents caused by children occur late at night or during the early morning hours, when parents or guardians are asleep. The result is deaths, injuries, and property damage. Accidents can also happen when children are helping with breakfast and brush against stoves, ovens, or toasters.
To help prevent fire injuries during the night, children should be dressed in flame-resistant sleepwear. As of October 1, 1990, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) has toughened its requirements that clothing sold in stores or through catalogs as children's sleepwear must be flame-resistant and must pass stringent guidelines for flame resistance.
If you are purchasing sleepwear for a child, you should be aware that all sleepwear, sizes 0 through 14, is covered by the Flammable Fabrics Act (which was first enacted in 1953 and has since been revised) to reduce the shocking number of deaths that were caused annually by the ignition of flammable clothing.
In some instances, the CPSC guidelines have been circumvented when playwear or underwear that looks like sleepwear is intermingled with flame-resistant sleepwear. Some of the garments, actually sleepwear thinly disguised as playwear, bear disclaimer labels that state, "This item is not intended to be worn as sleepwear."
Most CPSC approved sleepwear being sold today is 100 percent polyester, which is inherently flame resistant. Attempts have been made to produce cotton sleepwear that meets CPSC standards, and some cotton sleepwear now available has been chemically treated with a flame-resistant finish that will not wear off or wash out, though it costs more than most sleepwear. Some retailers insist their customers want the comfort and softness of cotton and argue that they are doing their customers a service by providing sleepwear look-alikes that do not meet CPSC standards for flame resistancy. Unfortunately, many consumers are not aware of the safety benefits of flame-resistant sleepwear for children.
Why is this issue so important? All children's sleepwear fabrics will burn if held in a flame long enough. CPSC standards are intended to help prevent injuries caused when a fabric is struck by a spark or a flame and ignites quickly and spreads rapidly. Compare what happens when a match is held to CPSC-approved
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