“Baby walkers” are deadly!
Foreign countries prohibit the sale, but in our country.. people sell and use it freely!!!

Article by Prachuab Plittapolkranpim

In many countries around the world—Canada, Australia, and numerous U.S. states—baby walkers have been banned for 30–40 years after authorities found that tens of thousands of children were being injured every year.

In the U.S. alone, 24,000 children were injured in 1984, and by 1991, the number rose to 29,000 injuries, including both physical trauma and brain injuries.

Worse still, from 1989 to 1993, 11 infants died due to baby walker accidents.

Efforts in Thailand—and the limits of action

The Child Safety Promotion and Injury Prevention Center (CSIP) has campaigned many times to end the use of baby walkers. Eventually, together with the Office of Consumer Protection Board (OCPB), the most we could do—given our limited authority—was to require warning labels on walkers stating:

“This product does not help a child learn to walk and may be life-threatening.”

We also urged that they be called “support walkers” instead of “baby walkers.”

Many parents understood and firmly told us they would never let their children use one.
But I still remember one man who laughed and said:

“Come on… nobody in Thailand has ever died from these things. Don’t exaggerate.”

No one wants tragedy. But tragedy still came.

Case 1 — Suphan Buri, 19 January 2015

An 18-year-old mother placed her 5-month-old baby in a support walker and hurried 15 meters away to the kitchen to prepare food.

What she didn’t notice was that the spot where she left her baby was only 3 meters from a dug-out pond beside the house.

She was gone for only 6–7 minutes.

When she returned—her baby was gone, along with the walker.

Panic broke out. Relatives and neighbors searched everywhere, thinking someone might have taken the child.

Minutes later, she found her only daughter in the pond, still strapped in the walker,
head submerged, legs pointing upward.

Was anything changed after that day?

Was any law passed to ban the sale of these deadly devices?

The answer is: No.

All we heard were the same empty phrases:

“Let this be the last case…”
“May this never happen again…”

And those wishes turned into tragic irony, yet again.

Case 2 — Samut Prakan, 9 May 2019

A 30-year-old mother placed her 8-month-old son in a walker and sat outside the house, which had a metal fence about one meter high.

Just then, her sister messaged her on LINE. She became distracted.

Meanwhile, the baby pushed the walker into the gate, forcing it open.
The incline in front of the house caused the walker to roll out onto the street—
right as a 10-wheel truck was passing by.

The truck’s wheel crushed the baby’s skull instantly.

And again: was anything changed after that day?

Did any authority issue an order to ban the sale of these devices?