Ok, maybe I'm just a little sensitive to this whole issue because we have a 4 month old (our first) and we keep hearing this crap from our parents - "oh, we didn't have this fancy safety device when I was a kid and we turned out fine" or "we fed you kids this or that and you turned out fine". Sure you turned out fine, but lots of other kids didn't.
Deaths per 1,000 live births:
1950: 29.2
2003: 6.9
(source:
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0779935.html)
While I agree that we're far too over-the-top with safety BS in a litigation-crazy society, at least some of these safety advances have made a difference.
(BTW, I blame my parents dunking my soother in brandy when I was a baby for the fact that I'm only 5'7!
)