EU consumer watchdog calls for ban on babywalkers

BABYWALKERS can kill children and should be withdrawn from the market, the European consumer watchdog said yesterday.

There have been three deaths and 13,000 accidents linked to the use of babywalkers, said BEUC, the European federation of consumer organisations.

BEUC director Jim Murray said they have been campaigning for the past seven years to have babywalkers banned, but the European Commission has still failed to produce a set of safety standards. "We have called for tough new standards to be imposed and existing baby walkers to be taken off the market but, so far, the Commission has failed to deliver a set of safety regulations," Mr Murray said.

Research carried out by BEUC has found that two babies have died because of using babywalkers and there have been over 6,000 related accidents that required medical attention within the EU.

In the US, there has been one death, 6,000 related accidents, with 1,000 babywalker accidents in Canada, said Mr Murray.

"The big danger is that babies using these walkers try to run away and this can cause senseless and sometimes fatal accidents like we have seen in the past," he said.

The European consumer watchdog said research has also shown that baby walkers do not help children walk faster. In fact, they delay the process by an average of three weeks.

"The advice of experts is not to sell them and not to buy them, but parents keep on doing it," Mr Murray said.

A study carried out by the UCD School of Physiotherapy in the past year supported this view. Dr Mary Garrett who carried out the study said: "Parents are tremendously positive towards babywalkers because babies love them it is like giving a teenager a red racing car."It is up to each individual EU member state to monitor the safety of babywalkers and, so far, only one country, France, has banned them.

The Office of the Director of Consumer Affairs (ODCA) has responsibility for monitoring the safety of products in Ireland. "We have received no complaints so far from the public about babywalkers or risks attached to them," said ODCA product safety spokeswoman Catherine Lenihan.

Ms Lenihan said they would restrict the use of babywalkers, if they received complaints and evidence they were dangerous to children. "There is a requirement on parents to ensure that they do not use babywalkers on landings or dangerous places."

Mothercare which is one of the main retailers of babywalkers in Ireland said yesterday they had in-built safety devices in their products that would not allow it to topple over.