I recently had a very scary experience with my 2 year old daughter and my pliko pramette from Mamas and Papas. I was in the park sat next to the pushchair with my daughter next to me. She climbed into her push chair and within a few seconds was calling out for me. When I looked I realised her hand/wrist was trapped in some sort of bracket just under the seat. I struggled for about 10 minutes to get her free and I was panicking. Thankfully a group of men playing boule (we were in France) saw us, and one guy was very calm and after at least another 5/10 minutes more work, he freed her hand. It was bruised and she was scared, but ok. I spoke to M&P and they confirmed these brackets either side of the seat area, are for attaching the car seat. They are not secured in place and there is nothing preventing a child to access them. I had never used a car seat with it so wasn’t aware. They were sorry but said there was no safety issue as I shouldn’t have let my daughter climb in as described in the manual guidelines.
I took exception to this. Firstly, children try and climb in their push chair and just because it says in the manual, ‘don’t let them’, they will still try. Secondly, even if she was sat strapped into her chair this bracket is still only cm from her hands so is still a risk. M&P should not have a part on their push chair that is so easily accessible and use their guidelines to stand behind by saying it safe. They should understand children can be unpredictable and use their experience and insights from parents to improve safety.
My suggestion to them is that they simply attach a fastner to the flap that is already there, so the bracket can’t be reached by a child. They have said they do not view it as unsafe as they have had no other complaints. That’s not good enough for me. I’ve see first hand that a child could break a wrist with this bracket and I want them to act. I’ve complained to trading standards but I also wanted to make any parents who have a pramette aware, so they can take extra care.