Safe Toys: use of plastics

[joeyb]

I have two questions
Can anyone tell me what I should be checking for when buying plastic teething rings or if not, tell me a safe alternative to the plastic teething rings sold in shops.

I believe enviromental groups are concerned about the use of certain plastics (phthalates) in childrens toys. It is believed these phthalates are "hormone disrupting chemicals" & have be implicated in increases in testicular cancer, genital malformations and reduced sperm counts.

My little girl spends all day chewing plastic rings. So I either want to buy a safe one or use a non-plastic alternative. (I'm concerned if I use a carrot a bit may break off!).

Can anyone help.

My local little kiddy shop sells teething rings made from plastics that don't contain phthalates; I think Tomy might do them, too.

I know that some of the wooden toy companies (eg., Dawson and Son do all wooden teethers. I bet somewhere like John Lewis might, too. Flannels soaked in water & then frozen & then given straight to baby are supposed to be a big hit with some teething babies. Mine just chews on her fingers :-)

HTH.

I think teething rings are fine as they are designed to be chewed.

As far as I can tell the things you need to worry about are 'toys' like rubber ducks which are squeezy plastic and are not intended to be chewed by babies. I bought some of these from a local shop only to read up about phthalates when I got home and promptly threw them away. They did have the warning 'not for under 36 months' but then so do a lot of toys...