Babies dummies

Babies' dummies may help comfort young children but poorly designed and manufactured dummies can present the following hazards to infants and toddlers:

• choking – the dummy or teat may break apart and small pieces may get stuck in your child’s throat or the whole dummy may also become stuck in the child’s mouth and block their air supply. 
• strangulation – dummies attached to children’s clothes by a string or a ribbon can strangle the child if the string wraps around the child’s neck.
• cuts and abrasions – are the most common injuries when a child falls over with a dummy in their mouth. 

Babies’ dummies must comply with certain safety requirements of Australian Standard AS 2432-1991.

When you are shopping for baby dummies make sure they have:

• a safe shield size and shape (must be at least 35mm wide)
• ventilation holes
• secure teat attachment
• structural integrity
• packaging and label warning together with the distributor’s details.

Whilst there are product safety requirements for baby dummies it is important that you perform the following safety checks to keep your baby safe:

• check the dummy every time before use by pulling hard on the teat and tugging on the handle and ring to make sure they will not give way under pressure
• check the teat for wear and tear
• sterilise or wash the dummy regularly
• supervise your baby with their dummy.

Unsafe babies' dummies

For a list and photographs of babies dummies detected as unsafe and in the product safety survey and recalled from sale in June 2009 go to the Babies dummies page in the Business section.