Did you buy or did your child receive some wonderful gifts during the holiday season? If so, do not throw away those product registration cards that come in the "some assembly required" packaging and instructions. In some cases, they might save your child's life. Defective product issues affect Pennsylvania children and those all across the U.S.

Recalls of children's products for dangerous–sometimes, life threatening–defects are, unfortunately, all too common. An equally disturbing problem is that, often, parents and owners of these defective products never learn about the recall of dangerous items. This is not an isolated issue as sometimes millions of child products are recalled annually.

The government is trying to help with this troubling problem. A new federal law mandates that companies making "durable infant and toddler products" include a pre-stamped registration card to make it easy for parents to protect their children. Unfortunately, many young children have died because of product recalls that their parents never knew existed. While troubling, most of these tragic accidents have occurred because parents simply did not know of the recall or the defects.

The new law is named after a 16-month-old child who died in a daycare center crib that the operators did not know had been recalled five years before the child was born. The deceased child's mother pushed for this new regulation and founded an advocacy group committed to mandating that companies use product registrations, not for marketing, but for informing parents of defects, dangers and recalls of children's products deemed unsafe.

A recent Consumer Federation survey learned that 85 percent of parents who were aware of the new law will register their children's new products. Have you ever faced a child product recall issue?

Source: WJXT, "Why you should register children's products," Jan. 2, 2012