Do children accidentally suffocate themselves with plastic bags?

Question

My one year old daughter picked up a typical plastic supermarket grocery bag and I watched her with it briefly before taking it away, as it's common knowledge that kids aren't supposed to have plastic bags due to a risk of suffocation.

After actually seeing a child with a bag, however, I wondered how much of a risk this actually is. I had a very hard time imagining my daughter being able to get her head inside of the bag to such a degree that she would actually suffocate.

I'm [hopefully obviously] not advocating for any controlled experiments here! I just wondered where this common, ingrained warning comes from. How real of a danger is it when children play with plastic bags?

Answer 1

According to the US Consumer Product Safety Commission:

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) has received an average of about 25 reports a year describing deaths to children who suffocated due to plastic bags. Almost 90 percent of them were under one year of age.

About 4 million children are born each year in the USA, with an infant mortality rate of 6.06/1000 live births. That's about 25000 dead infants each year, so about 0.1% of US infant mortality is due to suffocation in plastic bags. It's not a big number, obviously, but it's there (note: it may be higher if there are incidents which aren't reported to the CPSC).

An older paper, Polson & Gee (1972) gives a number of case studies.

Answer 2

Not only is it a real danger, but it is now common knowledge because the printed warning notices on plastic bags do actually work.

Source: Death rates per million children decreased significantly following California statute requiring all plastic bags with thickness less than 0.001 inch to have printed warning on bag.