The following notice has been issued by the Office for Product Safety and Standards.
Baby self-feeding products present a risk of serious harm or death.
Risk description
Baby self-feeding products are designed to enable babies to bottle feed with little to no assistance from a caregiver. This creates a risk of serious harm or death from:
- choking on the feed
- aspiration pneumonia
Background
This follows a previous safety alert about baby self-feeding pillows / prop feeders published on 30 November 2022 and applies to all baby self-feeding products.
Baby self-feeding products are designed to enable a baby to be attached to a bottle so that it may self-feed with little to no assistance from a caregiver holding the bottle and controlling the feed. This is inconsistent with NHS guidance in relation to safe bottle feeding.
The General Product Safety Regulations 2005 (GPSR) require all products to be safe in their normal or reasonably foreseeable usage.
A baby, which is the intended user of the product, does not have the dexterity or cognitive ability to control the flow of bottle feed, or to know when to stop feeding, or to act if it gags or chokes or to otherwise signal or raise alarm if something is going wrong. Crucial to this, gagging is characterised by noise and coughing, whereas choking is characterised by silence because of the blockage to the airway.
The most common reason for babies to choke on feed is because the liquid is being dispensed faster than it can swallow.
The harm in relation to aspiration pneumonia follows a similar sequence of events, but a choking event does not occur. However, the baby does breathe in liquid which goes on to cause an infection resulting in pneumonia.
The risks from choking and aspiration pneumonia are entirely related to the design and intended use of the product - these risks cannot be mitigated by instructions.
Consumers, local authority trading standards services and businesses are asked to take specific action to cease use or remove these products from the market and dispose of safely, as advised below.
Action
Consumers:
- should immediately stop using these products and dispose of them safely
Businesses:
- must immediately remove these products from the market as they cannot comply with the safety requirements under the General Product Safety Regulations, 2005
- must comply with their obligations under product safety law
Local authority trading standards and Northern Ireland environmental health:
- should identify and take appropriate action against businesses that sell baby self-feeding pillows as they do not comply with the safety requirements set down in the General Product Safety Regulations 2005
Additional information and resources
Consumer safety alert poster
OPSS new story
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