Grace: [00:00:00] Look, we don't want to blow our own trumpet, but since we set up shop in a garage in East London way back in the 60s, which has helped see in some really important changes to the way we regulate products. Recently, a big focus has been the Online Safety Act, also payment protections, and of course, we're continuing to raise awareness of that.
of product safety failings. But over the last six or so decades, there's one area we've been consistently passionate about, and it's the safety of babies and children. Today, we're hearing more about that work and why it's particularly important right now. So whether you're a parent, a grandparent, or simply curious to hear more, you'll want to stick around.
I'm Grace Farrell.
Harry: And I'm Harry Kind.
Grace: And this is Get Answers, for living your best consumer life. When life gives you questions, which get answers? Well, joining us today, we've got two brilliant experts [00:01:00] from which we have Alison Potter. She's a senior editor who heads up our safety investigations. And we're also joined by Kamisha Daru.
She's the scientific advisor who's in charge of designing and analysing our product safety and baby product tests. Welcome both.
Harry: Hello.
Grace: Hello. Hi
Harry: guys.
Grace: This episode is really important to me. I've got two children, they're not very old, so I've kind of gone through the baby phase, I would say, relatively recently, and I'm now kind of entering the, well, kind of navigating the world of phone usage and the internet and all that kind of thing.
I just don't think you can ever really relax as a parent. Well, let's go back a little bit to the kind of the early days of WICH, because we've been a trailblazer for child safety from pretty much the get go. Isn't that right?
Alison: Yes, I only realised once I started working here, but WICH has been a huge trailblazer in terms of car seats.
So we've been testing them since 1967. We're the only [00:02:00] organisation that actually carries out crash testing within the UK. We also safety test push chairs, toys, nappies, and a whole range of baby products. And apart from British safety standards that do testing, we are the only place in the UK that does it.
And we're the only place that can tell parents if a product is truly safe.
Grace: I mean, one example of the work that we've been doing recently is, of course, the Shoddies. Anyone who's an avid listener of the podcast should remember the episode we did on Shoddies very recently. But it's where we were picking out companies, brands, products that were Performing badly, basically.
And, um, one of these products that form part of that work was a particular car seat. So Alison, can you tell us more about that?
Alison: Yeah, so we crash test every car seat we review. This includes front and side impact tests. These are tougher than the legal minimum requirements. So we crash test front on at 40 and side on at 30 miles an hour, whereas the legal minimum [00:03:00] requirements are 32 miles an hour.
and 15 miles an hour. These differences in speed enable us to see a whole host of things that you might not other see otherwise. When we crash tested the Peg Perego Fiaggio twist car seat with the twist base, and can I just say this did pass the regulatory tests required by UN regulation In a rear facing configuration, the support leg on the car seat completely crumpled, the momentum of the crash hurled the car seat forward, and it came loose from the ISOFIX base and flew out of the test car, which was completely shocking.
We then tested it in the forward facing configuration, and whilst the failure wasn't as severe, it still flew up in the air. Which in a real life scenario would mean the seat and your child's head slamming into the roof of the car. The Viaggio Twist is designed for babies measuring 61cm to 105cm, which, in our speak, means 6 months to 4 years old, so it really is a young [00:04:00] child's car seat.
Harry: Hmm. And when you say, you know, slamming into the ceiling, I, I, I've seen the video from this test. The video is on our socials on Instagram and is almost comical if it weren't so serious a problem that you basically have a dummy representing a child, some assaulting through a car as the thing that's supposed to protect them.
Crumples, like it's a, you know, a dry rut. It's really quite scary.
Grace: Yeah, it's horrifying. I mean, I was surprised when we did this piece of work that the standard UK tests only test at, was it, what, 15 miles an hour and 30 miles an hour?
Alison: Yeah, so 32 is front on, 15 miles an hour side on. We feel like it's not strong enough, which is why we test at a faster speed.
Harry: You are testing at the speeds where presumably most crashes are happening at these slower speeds, but, you know, 40 miles an hour, that is still going through suburban towns. There's people pulling out of [00:05:00] driveways, not looking where they're going. That's where that kind of side impact is really important.
But ultimately, at faster speeds, you know, we're not testing because there aren't just car seats that can't really live up to that, right?
Kamisha: Yeah, exactly. Clearly, you know. The standard will be based on data. They'll have statistics on crashes and what speeds they occur at. But we essentially stress test the car seats.
We want to know that they're going to be safe at the higher end of speeds. So that's why, as Alison mentioned, we test at 40 miles per hour for front on and 30 for side on collisions.
Grace: And Kamisha, can you tell us more about the role you play with these tests? Are you kind of helping to design them, to analyse the results?
How does it all work?
Kamisha: Yeah, so we're involved in our car seat testing with other consumer organisations across Europe as well. And our tests are based on Euro NCAP tests, which are an organisation which perform lots of crash testing on all the cars that we drive. [00:06:00] And yeah, obviously our performance testing is mainly based on.
The crashes at the speeds that we just mentioned, but we also look at other things such as ease of installation because we know that a lot of car seats can be really difficult to configure and to fit safely into a car. We do downrate car seats if there is a potential to install it incorrectly, because that obviously jeopardizes the safety of the car seat.
And we also look at things like comfort because we know that the ergonomics of the car seat and how your child sits in the car seat can affect their development as they're growing up. And kids do spend a lot of time in car seats at times. So it's really important that their spine and their hips are in the correct position as they're traveling safely.
Grace: point because I think a lot of people, they move car seats around. I know like with me, my kid's grandparents might take them for a trip and we'll be kind of uninstalling my car seat, moving it to [00:07:00] their car. And if it isn't easy to install, you're leaving yourself so vulnerable, aren't you? I mean, it might do well in the crash tests, you know, kind of in isolation, but then if you're installing it wrong, it kind of becomes meaningless.
Kamisha: Definitely. And I think it's hard, there's a cost of living crisis, but if people can, it would be best to have car seats specific for each car, so you have one, the grandparents have one, whoever else is transporting the child has one. And it just reduces the opportunity for having to keep moving it from car to car and install it incorrectly, because they can be quite tricky.
Harry: So Alison, if you're someone listening who's looking to buy a car seat or family members going to buy a car seat, what would be your advice to them on finding a good one?
Alison: So it can be really complicated. We want to make it as easy for parents as possible. So we have a car seat shopping checklist, which raises all the important points like does your car have ISOFIX?
How many seats go in the car? You can print out this [00:08:00] checklist and actually take it to a car seat retailer and it will help you when speaking to them. To help you get a car seat that actually suits your child, fits them correctly, and will fit in your car. We've got tons of free advice anyway. So we've got car seat laws, fitting advice.
We've got lots of advice, whether or not you want a high back booster for an older child or a Or an extended rear face and car seat for a child that's kind of primary school, infant school age, as well as baby car seats. If you're a W. I. T. C. H. member, you can have a look at more than 200 car seat reviews and those reviews, as Kamisha explained, go through like all of our safety results, all of our ergonomic and comfort assessments, and also how easy it was to fit.
When we do our fitting tests, we don't have experts fitting the car seats because they know how to do it. We get parents involved. We want to see if parents do it wrong. We really put all of these seats through their paces so that you can kind of have all the information you need to make the [00:09:00] best car seat purchase.
Harry: How do you test how comfortable a car seat is? I'm guessing you're not sitting in them.
Alison: Sadly, I wouldn't fit, but we do have a host of children, different sizes, and the testing of car seats actually takes months and months because if you add up the crash tests, the checks with children, and then we also obviously have the, um, expert ergonomic assessments.
So yeah, it's really
Grace: thorough and it takes a while. I think it's important to say though, that though those elements of the reviews are for members, you know, about the comfort, that kind of thing, safety is always free to all, isn't it?
Alison: Yes, actually, I should point out that in the case of that Peg Perego Viaggio twist, because of the fundamental safety concerns that we had, we put that for free.
There is a safety warning on it. Anyone can read that and see the concerns we have. And to be honest, before we even published the review of that car seat, we spoke to the brand in question. We told them about our [00:10:00] findings because it was an urgent situation and they needed to look into it immediately. As a result, the car seat was taken off sale and they've made some changes to rectify the issues that we found in our testing.
Grace: And so if you didn't have a membership, but you wanted to just scan whether cars have a safety issue with them, you're able to see that on our website, aren't you? Regardless of your membership status.
Alison: Yes, any car seat that has a fundamental safety issue will be a 0 percent don't buy and you can very quite clearly see the yellow safety warning on the review itself.
Grace: I mean car seats are a big thing for which but it's not all we do when it comes to car safety. We've actually played a role in seatbelts way back when. Can you tell me a bit more about this Alison?
Alison: Yes, so which started pushing for the seatbelt law implementation? In 1962 it is, well it was sorry, one of our longest running campaigns.
Shockingly it was only made compulsory by law to wear one on the 31st of [00:11:00] January 1983. This was after about 11 failed attempts to pass the legislation and just years of campaigning by which.
Harry: It's not just cars. I feel like you can talk about child safety and cars for ages, but actually the home is where we see so many accidents, sadly involving children as well. And just this year, we've been talking about socket covers, which seem like something that can be fixed. be a part in protecting children from electric shocks that they're not putting a fork into the outlet.
But actually, having done a little bit of research myself, there's a lot of evidence to suggest that they do more harm than good or could do more harm than good, because they actually undo a lot of the safety features that are inherent in UK sockets, where there's shutters that protect children from the live wires inside and having that plastic around just gives kids a tool to open up sockets.
Read more about that on which. co. uk. [00:12:00] But we've also tested, I mean, stairgates and And button batteries. We've talked about button batteries, I think, for years. What are the risks there?
Kamisha: Yeah, so there's quite a issue with button batteries quite recently. And the Office of Product Safety and Standards have had quite a close look at this in the most recent years.
And they've been recalling quite a lot of products and toys off the market. But there is an issue with button batteries. And we did some testing a few years ago in 2021 on lots of children's toys across lots of online marketplaces. And we did find that around 40 percent of all the toys that we bought weren't passing the standard that they should be for toys and the safety regulation.
Harry: So that kind of safety is basically things to stop children from being able to access the battery itself and then just eat it.
Kamisha: Yes, exactly. So with button batteries, they are very small and they're small enough that a child could [00:13:00] a put it in their mouth and be potentially swallow it. So first of all, there's a choking risk there.
And second of all, the problem with these button batteries is if they are swallowed, they do have the potential to leak as they are batteries. And this can lead to a range of issues such as internal damage. If it leaks onto certain organs, it can burn through their organs and lead to injuries or death.
So there's quite an issue there with children and any button batteries that are in toys, they are. required to be adequately secured. So either they should have a tool required to open the button battery compartment. Usually that tool is something like a screw or if not a screw, then there should be at least two simultaneous actions needed to access.
So usually something like a twist and a pull that a child would not be able to do that easily. So they shouldn't be able to gain access to that [00:14:00] compartment easily to stop them putting it in their mouth.
Grace: And this is an issue that we've seen time and time again with online marketplaces, isn't it? Where you're buying unbranded toys that actually have huge safety issues.
I mean, we've seen it with button batteries. We've also seen it with magnets. It's a piece of work I was involved in a few years back, and it was where I mean, you see them all the time that these kind of towers of magnet shapes that you can build with some of them from these online marketplaces were so flimsy, you could just easily see.
break them open and these tiny magnets would come popping out and I had no idea about this but if you swallow two magnets together they can attract each other sort of through the lining of your organs and and tear things and it's really horrific.
Alison: Yeah they can cause an immense amount of damage but it's not just button batteries and magnets you know we've tested slime and found with chemicals we've tested teething toys and found stuff is [00:15:00] completely unsafe, you know, choking hazards.
There's just a whole range of products out there that are complete safety nightmares for children that most parents have no idea about.
Harry: And, you know, we do a lot of the testing and a lot of what we've just been talking about are things that, I don't know that, People might think of just like very legit products, things that you would buy in a big retailer, you would know maybe the brand.
And that's why we test things like car seats. We're testing things like stair gates, but then there's the whole world of these unbranded dodgy items are bought new on online marketplaces like via Amazon, AliExpress, Wish. com, where you don't necessarily know what you're getting. And that's where we've seen, I guess, like a real explosion in.
These dangerous products like magnet toys, but also, I mean, I remembered a lot of tests on child carriers and slings where they're just not up to quality.
Alison: I mean, one real difference between what I would call online and high street [00:16:00] manufacturers, as opposed to products that sold on my marketplaces is usually So basically, when we test something, if we find safety concerns, safety issues, we immediately go to where we bought it and we let them know.
That's the first thing we do. We don't immediately publish it. We go and speak to them, um, and we have a dialogue about our concerns because we want to resolve these issues and we want to make things safer for children. But previously, Kamisha and I have contacted sellers on online marketplaces and they've just replied to us with emojis or with nonsense.
You know, we've told them like this is categorically unsafe. This needs to immediately be taken off sale and we get sent like four smiley face emojis.
Harry: is quite horrifying that not only is this stuff happening, but the seller's just being so blase about it, they don't care. Is this the problem with online marketplaces, do you think?
Kamisha: Yeah, I think everything that is put on the market has to comply with the General Product Safety Directive, which is a regulation that's says, if you're [00:17:00] going to sell a product, it has to be safe and you should be able to demonstrate that it's safe. But the difference with selling in a retailer and on an online marketplace is that these online marketplaces are not legally responsible for if these products aren't safe and the manufacturer or the importer actually is responsible.
So there's not enough in our opinion being done by online marketplaces to make sure that these products that are being distributed are safe for consumers. And that's why we've had quite a long standing campaign on this. And we're getting closer and closer to our goal. Can you tell us a bit more about
Grace: that?
And how are we getting closer? What's been changing?
Kamisha: So we are pushing for these online marketplaces to be legally responsible for the products that they are selling. And recently in the King's speech it was addressed that this will be pushed forward in the next government. So hopefully, fingers crossed, soon enough we should be seeing more movement [00:18:00] on that.
And we are aware that the online marketplaces are also aware of this. So we are in communication with them, but fingers crossed, you should hear more on this soon.
Harry: The very excitingly named product safety and metrology bill.
Grace: I mean, these things move slowly, don't they? So I suppose we would say in the meantime, it's best to just avoid.
buying things for children from online marketplaces?
Kamisha: Yeah, I would avoid unbranded products where you've not heard of the brand, you know, you look at the product listing and there's minimal information. You want to look at things like, does it have a range of photos available? Have they mentioned that the product has been tested to a standard?
Is it there? third party tested at an accredited lab. You know, do they state this type of information? Look for things like that. Definitely do your due diligence if you are, but we would definitely recommend buying anything from a retailer. I think that I've
Alison: personally seen such catastrophic failures that, you [00:19:00] know, it really does scare me out there.
And I think that most parents don't really have an idea of how unsafe something can be. One thing that Kamisha and I have noticed is that online marketplaces will be selling baby products and they'll have a picture of the baby on the listing. But when you look at the product or the box, you know, it says not for children under five, but it's really small.
And so what they're doing there is they're sort of removing liability because if you go back to them and say, I gave this to my baby and a bit of wood broke off and they choked on it. Oh, it's not supposed to be for under fives. But it's actually really hard to see that information. I would say that there is a difference between buying on online marketplaces from some random seller in a weird corner of the world, as opposed to buying from another parent who is selling on something secondhand.
But no matter what, if you're buying something, I'd say where possible, try to look at it. So if you're buying something from Facebook marketplace or Gumtree. Don't part with your money [00:20:00] till you've gone there, you've seen the product, and you've tested it. And especially if it's something like a pushchair, check the brakes.
Check all aspects of it before you give them your money, because you won't get that money back. Do you think it's even getting
Harry: worse? That it's getting harder as a parent to buy things safely online for your children?
Alison: I think with the explosion of kind of other online marketplaces like Timu, AliExpress, like there's lots of marketplaces now and actually like there's lots of trends.
One thing we're seeing at the moment, it's been a big problem in America, not so much here, but you can get these water beads. So they're often used in flower arranging and they're basically little beads and you add water to them and they expand. And they can also be a sensory toy for kids. Although We wouldn't really recommend it because the problem is, is kids swallow them and then they expand in their stomachs.
And so again, if you go online to an online marketplace and you type in water beads for kids, loads of product listings will come up. But again, that's a fundamentally that there is no way that that product can be [00:21:00] safe unless an older child is playing with it. But then are you going to have? a nine or ten year old play with something that basic.
Grace: I think so much of it is to do with the social media boom and just how viral these trends go. Because I mean, there have always been trends with toys and you want the latest thing, but you would go to a reputable shop and you would buy it. There weren't just sort of videos being passed around of these kind of obscure toys from Who knows where suddenly going viral.
Everyone wants one and you have no idea what it's made from where it's coming from. I think it's gotten so much worse. I
Alison: mean, take for example, slime. Slime was such a big fad for how many years and we were testing it and finding so many unsafe chemicals. And you think about kids playing with them with their hands and they put their hands in their mouth.
It's really shocking.
Harry: And when we talk about like 80s kids growing up around leaded petrol and being told on TV not to climb pylons, but we're [00:22:00] almost living in a, in a world like that, that is more insidious, where the stuff is kind of sneaking into our homes in like brown cardboard boxes rather than being out on the street and being a threat.
threat from a public service video. It's really quite scary. At the end of the day, is this all coming down to money? Parents need to save money by buying knockoff car seats, but also then a lot of companies making a lot of money off this.
Kamisha: Yeah, I think it's hard. You know, a lot of brands are making a lot of money and of course Rule number one in business is profits and revenue.
So, they will hike the prices up where they can. And, and we've seen this in the cost of living crisis across all sectors, you know, including energy, food. And that also goes for products as well, so. It is difficult. Things are hiking up and I think that is what we're seeing. So it makes sense for parents to try and look for cheaper products, but you have to understand that with cheaper [00:23:00] products can often come a compromise on quality and often safety.
Grace: Well, one way of saving money is of course by buying secondhand. I mean, we've touched on it a little bit already, but we're going to talk more about the guidelines you should be following when you are buying secondhand to make sure that you're buying something that's safe and also which secondhand sites are better than others after this.
Harry: Welcome back to Get Answers. Now, if you have been interested at all in some of these reviews that we've talked about, where we're really getting into the detail of the comfort and the quality of these items, the safety of course, it's available for free for everyone, but if you want those kind of in depth reviews, I would really say check Take a look at a witch subscription because we've got a 50 percent off opportunity for podcast listeners.
So starting at just 39. 50 for a full year, you can get the witch magazine delivered direct to your door. And for the same price, you could [00:24:00] also choose a digital witch subscription, and that gives you access to all of our product reviews, the witch app, the digital edition of the magazine, all online. And you'll be able to use the ask which service, which the personalized one to one buying advice line.
Really, really useful. So if you would like that or full access for 49. 50, it's 50 percent off the usual price as a podcast listener. You can get that 50 percent off deal by heading to which. co. uk.
Now before the break we were discussing plenty of products that we've investigated and naturally some of these things you'll want to buy new. But are there some products we should avoid picking up second hand because of safety concerns? Kamisha, what would you say we should avoid?
Kamisha: Yeah, so there are a few products that we would recommend just buying and not receiving secondhand.
These would be child car seats, cot mattresses, and bike helmets, predominantly because the main performance metric [00:25:00] of these products is safety of the child, so you want to buy these new. I
Harry: mean, fortunately, cot mattresses and bicycle helmets, they're not too expensive to buy new. Some things for kids are really expensive, like pushchairs, prams, Are those okay to get second hand?
Kamisha: Absolutely. We would recommend even getting those second hand. Pushchairs, highchairs, things like that. Those are great to receive second hand. As you say, they are quite expensive, so avoid spending that money where you can. And there are some products where you're probably okay receiving second hand, but you might want to just check and do some due diligence.
For example, slings and carriers. toys as we've spoken about, baby clothing, breast pumps, baby monitors. With these products you do just want to check that everything is working in order as it should and it looks safe.
Harry: And we've got a full list of those recommendations on which. co. uk for anyone who wants to to go through the checklist of what they should be looking out for.
I buy a lot of things [00:26:00] secondhand, there's a lot of advice out there. Do we have a sense of the actual dangers, the scale of what's happening by people buying these items secondhand?
Alison: I don't think it's a massive problem. And actually, as we've mentioned buying kind of pushchairs secondhand, there are some pushchair brands where they have kind of like a spare parts system.
So if you do find your dream secondhand pushchair, but say there's a small problem with like a wheel or the handlebar, you can actually get the new product. Like that specific thing from the manufacturer and fit it onto your secondhand pushchair so it can be as new and then you would save tons of money.
Harry: That is really good, really good for sustainability, really good for that kind of buy it for life mentality.
Alison: Yeah, and also I would point out that kind of when we test products. Price isn't a factor. We will tell you how much the thing costs, but it's not a factor in terms of whether or not we test it. So we test some pushchairs costing less than 100.
We test some pushchairs costing more than a thousand. We find issues in each. We found some really great bargains. So [00:27:00] I would say, look at what your budget is. If you want a really expensive pushchair, but your budget is low, definitely go secondhand. But then also consider there are actually some excellent low cost pushchairs.
But you can substitute product here, you know, cot bed, stair gate, baby monitor, have a real look around. There are so many options in terms of where you can buy things. Now, I think that is part of the problem, though.
Grace: Well, let's move on then to secondhand marketplaces. So these are things like Vinted, eBay, Depop, that kind of thing, because obviously that's very popular for baby and child products.
I mean, as you were saying, you might find your dream. which costs thousands of pounds, which you can pick up for a fraction of the price online. Now, I know that which has looked into these secondhand marketplaces and actually rated them to discover the best ones. Can you tell us a bit about that research?
Alison: Yes. So we surveyed thousands of people to find out the best places to buy and sell secondhand. [00:28:00] Coming in at the bottom, sadly, was Facebook Marketplace. Next door in Gumtree, a sort of middle of the table. So who were some of the best marketplaces? So eBay and Amazon Marketplace and Vinted came out on top.
As mentioned, Facebook Marketplace was right at the bottom of the table for the best places to buy secondhand. Mainly the issues were ease of contacting seller and making offers, having redress if something goes wrong in terms of the best places to sell. The table doesn't change too much. Vinted and eBay are still up top.
Although Facebook marketplace is not at the bottom for selling online, but Spock, Depop and Nextdoor when we asked people about their experiences selling on those online marketplaces, we did have quite a lot of issues reported back to us.
Grace: Do you know, the thing I love buying most actually on secondhand marketplaces is, um, clothes.
I use Vinted for all of my kids clothes because I just get loads of Zara stuff for a [00:29:00] couple of quid and it's brilliant. Anyway, if you do want to know more about secondhand marketplaces, we actually did a full episode about this on our sister podcast, Which Money? So we'll pop a link to this in the description.
in the show notes. Now, Alison, Kamisha, it's been so lovely to have you on. Alison, you've got some exciting plans. You're going to be heading to the Baby Show at the end of next month at the London Olympia. Can you tell me a bit more about that?
Alison: Yes, so I will be at the Baby Show on Saturday the 26th of October along with baby and child product expert Hannah Fox.
We'll be on the main stage sharing our top tips. and car seat and pushchair buying advice and we'll be answering parents questions so please come and join us we'd love to see you. Tickets are still available www. thebabyshow. co. uk and um yeah hopefully see some friendly faces there. And
Harry: Kamisha, what are you working on at the moment?
Kamisha: At the moment, we have a big toys investigation up and coming, so definitely look out for that, where we'll be [00:30:00] doing some similar testing that we referenced earlier on in the podcast, looking at things like button batteries, magnets, choking risks, suffocation hazards, and just checking if there were any cords that can cause entanglement issues, but that's a big focus for us.
Harry: Well, thank you so much for joining us today. It's been great.
Alison: Thank you guys for having us.
Harry: Before we say goodbye, a reminder to get in touch with us if you've got any feedback on today's episode or if you'd like your own questions answered in a future show. We're on podcast at which. co. uk.
Grace: And if you can spare two minutes, really it doesn't take long at all, it would be wonderful if you could leave us a rating and or a review wherever you're listening.
The more of these we get, the more people we can reach with our advice.
Harry: Have you got a Smart Meter or are you excited to get one from your energy supplier? Well, you won't wanna miss an episode we've got coming up very soon.
Grace: Today's Get Answers was presented by me, Grace Farrell, [00:31:00] alongside Harry Kind, produced by James Rowe and Rob Lily Jones, and edited by Eric Bria.
And thanks again to our wonderful guests, Alison and Kaisha from the team here at Witch. We'll see you next time. Bye
Harry: bye-Bye.