Climbing Into Front-Loaders & Dryers

A front-loading washer or a dryer whose door a toddler can pull open; a laundry room that stays open; a child who 'hides' in the dryer or sits in the drum; an appliance with a door that is left open to air out.

CPSC has received reports of children who suffocated after crawling into appliances including clothes dryers, combination washer/dryers, freezers and old refrigerators. Across those cases most victims were 4 to 7, the door could not be easily pushed open from inside, and in some dryer cases the machine was accidentally turned on with the child inside. In August 2019 a CPSC spokesperson told Consumer Reports the agency knew of 3 deaths since 2014 among children 5 and younger related to washing machines (two involving front-loaders), and about 3,000 ER-treated washer injuries, most of them falls. These are small numbers from a news report, not a rate. What the sources agree on: close and lock the laundry room door whenever you leave (AAP, CPSC), use the washer's child-lock feature if it has one (some lock the door, some only stop it starting, so check the manual), add a child lock to the outside of the washer and dryer doors (AAP, Consumer Reports), and make it a household rule that appliances are not toys. AAP also says not to let children hang on the doors, which can tip the machine over. Consumer Reports adds shutting off the water valve when the washer isn't in use.