Safety alert: Stokke Home Bed cot mattress named Which? Don’t Buy due to smothering and suffocation risk
Which? is calling for a product recall and warning parents not to buy or to use the Stokke Home Bed cot mattress after it failed a significant safety test, making this mattress dangerous for babies, particularly those aged under six months.
Which? tested the mattress in three places to assess whether it is firm enough to stop a baby from being smothered or from suffocating. We tested two mattresses and both failed this test, in two key areas, which indicates a risk of a baby suffocating if they were to roll from back to front.
A newborn baby is unable to rollover, but from the age of four to twelve weeks, a baby will begin to be able to roll unaided in one direction, increasing the risk of smothering if they are lying on a soft surface and are unable to right themselves.
A key part of our cot mattress safety test, which became part of the British Standards in September 2017, investigates whether a mattress is firm enough to help prevent your baby from being smothered if they roll onto their face while sleeping.
Although the Stokke Home Bed Mattress passed the safety standards in force when it first went on sale in 2015, the standards at the time did not include testing for suffocation risk. The mattresses Which? tested at our lab did not pass this critical test so we are advising parents not to buy this mattress while the manufacturer investigates further.
Which? has made the cot mattress a Don’t Buy and is calling on the manufacturer and retailers to remove it from sale immediately. Which? has also asked the Office for Product Safety and Standards to step in and ensure that sales of the mattress are stopped and that the mattresses are recalled.
Alex Neill, Managing Director of Home Products and Services at Which? said:
“Concerned parents will expect to see immediate action from Stokke and the Office for Product Safety and Standards to get these suffocation-risk mattresses removed from sale and recalled from people’s homes.
“Our advice to anyone who thinks that they may have purchased one of these mattresses is to stop using it immediately and to contact Stokke directly.”
A Stokke representative said:
“The safety and wellbeing of the babies and children using our products is our number one priority and we take your concerns very seriously.
“While we meet mandatory safety requirements in UK with our mattress, we have still ordered an additional risk assessment by a third party.“We can confirm that Stokke® never received any report of any injuries related to this mattress or its firmness on any of our crib designs.”
Stokke also said it would take immediate appropriate measures if the third party risk assessment pointed to the cot mattress being hazardous.
Notes to editors:
Read the full review here: http://www.which.co.uk/reviews
The Don’t Buy page for cot mattresses can be found here: https://www.which.co.uk/review
The Stokke Home Bed Cot Mattress retails for £87 approximately
How Which? tests cot mattresses:
A key part of our cot mattress tests investigate the firmness of each cot mattress and how well it supports the body of a baby and a toddler, which we assess using a 12kg and a 20kg dummy. We use two heavy weights for the head and the bottom, which shows us whether a cot mattress will sag or be supportive.
Babies sleep a lot, so we check whether it’s durable and will offer a good level of body support night after night, as your child grows bigger.
Find out more about how we test cot mattresses, and why it’s important to opt for a cot mattress that is easy to clean and resistant to moisture.
Safe sleep advice:
Read our baby bedding safety advice for more information about how to make sure your baby’s cot is safe from hazards.
The Lullaby Trust, the UK’s foremost organisation on baby safe sleeping, recommends the safest place for your baby to sleep is on a firm and flat mattress.
There must be no pillows, quilts, duvets or soft toys if your baby is under 12 months old. Instead use cotton sheets, lightweight blankets, or alternatively a baby sleeping bag instead of bedding.
These are just a few of the steps parents can take to reduce the risk of Sudden Infant Death syndrome (SIDS), which is a term used to classify any sudden and unexpected death of a baby 12 months of age or younger.
Which Product Safety Campaign:
Which? has launched a campaign to ‘End Dangerous Products’ calling for fundamental reform of the UK’s antiquated product safety regime to keep unsafe products out of our homes. More than 80,00 people have so far signed our petition to take a stand against dangerous products
https://campaigns.which.co.uk/
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