Drawstrings: The Hoodie’s Dangerous Detail

By Jerry Farrell, Jr

Commissioner of Consumer Protection

If there is one item of clothing that’s a closet staple for the school-age crowd, it is the “hoodie,” those hooded sweatshirts and tops that come in all sizes and styles for boys and girls from infants through teens.

Noted for its warmth and easy care, this wardrobe workhorse has been around since the 1930s when it was created for laborers working in the frozen warehouses of New York. It was only in the early to mid-1980s that the hoodie’s popularity as a fashion item took off.

From a safety perspective, however, it immediately became tragically apparent that most hoodies were actually dangerous for youngsters. From 1985 through 1999, 22 children died and 48 were injured in incidents involving tangled or snagged drawstrings. More than two-thirds of the deaths and injuries involved drawstrings in the hood part of the item, while the rest involved waist drawstrings.

Most of the injuries from hood drawstrings took place on a playground slide. As a child descended the slide, a toggle or knot on the drawstring got caught at the top of the slide — usually on a bolt or in a tiny space between the guardrail and the slide platform. Suspended partway down the slide, the youngster was trapped while the drawstring grew tighter and eventually strangled the child. Victims ranged in age from 2 through 8 years old.

One young child strangled after the hood drawstring on her coat became caught on a fence that she was trying to climb over. Some toddlers have been strangled in their cribs by drawstrings that got caught on the crib slats.

Waist drawstring accidents often involved children aged 7 through 14 whose jackets got caught on school bus handrails or in bus doors. In a few awful cases, children were dragged by the vehicle.

It is certainly clear — sweatshirts and jackets for children are best without drawstrings!

In 1996, the US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) recommended that for children’s outerwear, waist drawstrings should extend no more than 3 inches out of the garment, and the string should be sewn into the garment at its midpoint so it cannot be pulled longer on one side. Drawstrings on hoods and necklines should be completely removed from children’s items, according to the CPSC. The agency further encouraged adults to look for and buy children’s hooded outerwear with alternative hood closures, such as snaps, buttons, or Velcro, and recommended that manufacturers and retailers produce and sell these items.

The following year, the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM), an international organization that develops and publishes voluntary technical standards for a wide range of products, adopted CPSC’s drawstring guidelines. Injuries and deaths from drawstring incidents dropped sharply in the United States as a result.

When, however, more and more clothing began arriving from overseas, children’s clothing with drawstrings once again started appearing in stores. In 2006, CPSC wrote to overseas manufacturers, importers and retailers of children’s jackets and hoodies, urging them to adopt the ASTM standards and indicating that given the effectiveness of these guidelines in reducing accidents, its position would be that any children’s clothing with drawstrings at the hood or neck is defective and subject to recall.

Since then, the CPSC has issued dozens of nationwide product recalls on children’s hooded outerwear because of drawstrings. Still, some items do find their way to store shelves, where product safety inspectors at the Department of Consumer Protection find them and immediately take them off sale.

But because no inspection system can ever be totally perfect, I urge family members and caregivers to be on the lookout as well. Please, check children’s hooded sweatshirts and jackets and remove any drawstrings you find. This simple fix will help keep your children warm and safe in the colder months ahead.

Helpful information about consumer issues can be found on the department’s website, www.ct.gov/dcp.