(FORTUNE Magazine) – Have a baby, and you'll see the world through new eyes. If the manufacturers and marketers of child-safety devices get their message across, you'll see your toilet as a deathtrap. Then you might spend $10.95 on a plastic device to latch the lid shut. The stove? A flaming menace. (Shield-A-Burn, $24.95.) The blinds? Silent killers. (Cord Shorteners, $9.95.) The costs add up, but as Mindy Moss, the marketing administrator of the Right Start, which sells 150 different safety items through its stores and catalogs, sees it, "It's better to spend four or five hundred dollars down the road--and your kid is safe for all those years--than to go to the emergency room even once." Parents are drifting into two camps: those who agree with Moss and those who cringe at the very mention of plastic doorknob covers (three for $4.95) or hippo-shaped faucet covers ($11.50).

Young children have, of course, survived for tens of thousands of years without cotton-rubber kneepads ($11.95) and cushioned table edges ($29.95). Yet sales of child-safety products have reached about $500 million annually, according to Patricia Negron, an analyst at Adams Harkness & Hill, an investment bank. Why all this proliferation of protective gear? For one thing, agencies like the Safe Kids Campaign and the Consumer Product Safety Commission have increased public awareness of child injury in the home. Information about the potential dangers that children face has had a receptive audience in the growing number of older, educated, affluent parents who are interested in knowing all they can about child care--and willing to spend good money on their children.

In addition to the Right Start, several other companies are poised to cash in on these trends. Safety 1st, which began manufacturing those BABY ON BOARD signs in 1984, is now the largest manufacturer of child-safety products. Several of its products are carried by Perfectly Safe, one of three children's catalogs held by Kid Stuff Inc. and the first catalog dedicated solely to child-safety goods. Kid Stuff CEO William Miller and President Jeanne Miller cut their teeth in the retail business selling decidedly unsafe products--tobacco and smoking accessories--through Carey's Smoke Shop and the Smoke Shop Catalog.

Secondhand smoke aside, one could read all this activity as beautiful synergy between business and the public interest. Injuries do happen in the home. The Safe Kids Campaign reports that in 1997, approximately 2,600 children ages 14 and under died at home from unintentional injuries, with 70% of that number made up of children under 5. That year 4.5 million kids were treated in emergency rooms for injuries sustained at home.

Taking issue with anything aimed at cutting those numbers may seem cold and heartless, but let's do it anyway. American children are, for the most part, safer than ever. The overall number of injuries for children 14 and under has declined 33% since 1987. This is more than dumb luck--a good part of that decline can be attributed to the use of particular safety devices; car seats, bicycle helmets, smoke detectors, and flotation vests are the most important examples. The effectiveness of many of the safety items now being marketed, however, remains unproven. Moreover, some of the strongest-selling new items--like the toilet latch--guard against injuries that, while horrifying, are relatively uncommon. Finally, when one considers that, according to the Safe Kids Campaign, the strongest predictor of many childhood injuries is poverty, the risks facing children of parents making $100,000 or more--the target audience of the Perfectly Safe catalog--are significantly less than what the aggregate statistics suggest. Conversely, the risks facing children of parents who can't afford $10.95 for a toilet latch are even greater.

And while many of their products may indeed prevent injuries, purveyors of child-safety products do seem to cultivate fear in a particularly vulnerable group--new parents. Reading these catalogs is like taking a stroll through a childhood chamber of horrors: Crib death, drowning, disease, electrocution, scalding, and bumps and gashes of all kinds are suggested on every page. Few parents can take such a trip without compiling a long list of must-have items. "Parents are very suggestible," notes Dr. Maya Bunik, director of pediatric urgent care at Children's Hospital Oakland and mother of a young daughter. "I flip through a catalog like this, and I might find five things that I think I have to have."

Accidents can happen in any home, and for parents who can afford safety devices, to buy or not to buy can be a tough call. Safety experts agree on a number of points: No home can be made completely child-safe; basic safety requirements can often be met at little or no cost; and the most valuable safety measure--careful supervision--is not sold in stores. But when the Right Start's Moss makes the ominous suggestion that "it's the parents that don't spend the money, usually, who have something happen," many new parents hear an offer they can't refuse.

--Sue Wilson

* No children were harmed in the making of this article.

SUE WILSON is a writer and Ph.D. candidate in anthropology at the University of California at Berkeley.

REPORTER ASSOCIATE Natalia Mehlman