Hi,
I am designing some baby furniture and want to know if there is any agency regulating for things like safety in this industry? Is there anything like safety standards designers have to adhere to? Similar to codes in architecture…etc.
Being a new parent and a product designer i was sad to find out that there are no governing regulations for baby products. I attended a seminar, where the person hosting it main objective was to sell you their product, and during the introduction he walked us throough the structure of the department that is suppose to oversee that industry, and in essence it is just a section of an alternate branch that investigates injuries due to faulty eqiupment, henceforrth the recall process…
Yes in every country there are regulations on baby products, especially furniture. Which country(s) will the product be sold in?
You are only partially coreect. baby furniture and car seats are the only products regulated. And that is not due to a “Baby Product” regulating commitee
check out this site:
Currently the government has taken the approach that the safety burden is on the manufacturers. But given the recent high-profile recalls, there is a bill before congress to reform the “Consumer Product Safety Commission.”
Bottom line: expect more regulation.
I remeber doing an internship desiging some classroom furniture, and I ended up contacting UL to find out about testing and certification. They told me that most (all?) of the cert. for that area was done by a different lab. Its headquartered in Chicago (suburb) and the name was like inter something, I remember laughing because it sounded like the company from office space.
In response to the more regulation comment we/they can’t seem to figure out how to not paint baby toys with lead paint so I think its time for the govt to step in. This was a hard stance to form as a designer, but as a parent its a no brainer.
I realize its not the companies fault as much as the manufacturer in china, but if youre slapping your name on the box youre responsible
jspauld2
Nice web site but very wrong. You can’t trust everything on the internet.
I have designed Infant toys, feeding products, pacifiers etc, etc for most of my life. There are regulations for all of these. In the US they rules are set by the CPSC Consumer Product Safety Commission (agree with the points above about them), the ASTM, and materials are covered by the FDA within the Code of Federal Regulations for Food and Mouth Contact.
Many parts of baby furniture are also covered by these organizations as well. Cribs and car seats are especially regulated, but if you read some of the horro stories, and I have, you would know why. When I was at Evenflo they tried to get me to move to car seats and I quit instead 