Dangerous Baby Products Sold Online: What Which? and OPSS Found

In July 2026, the consumer group Which? published an investigation into baby products sold on major online marketplaces — Alibaba, AliExpress, Amazon, eBay, Etsy, OnBuy, TikTok Shop and Wish — and found 150 products it and the Office for Product Safety and Standards (OPSS) consider potentially lethal. None of this is about avoiding online shopping altogether: it's about knowing exactly which three categories to be careful with, and what a genuinely safe product looks like instead.

What Which? actually found

59 baby sleeping bags with a serious suffocation risk — hoods that could cover a baby's head and face, missing armholes, or both, meaning a sleeping baby could slip down inside the bag and cover their own nose and mouth. Some listings even had novelty attachments (shark teeth, bunny ears) stitched onto the hood. A compliant sleeping bag must have proper armholes under the British safety standard, BS 8510 — see the "buy-safe check" and vetted picks in our best sleeping bags guide.

54 self-feeding products — devices, often marketed as "hands-free" bottle holders, that let a bottle feed a baby without anyone holding it. OPSS first flagged this category back in 2022: because babies can't control how fast milk comes out, unsupervised feeding risks silent choking or milk entering the lungs (aspiration pneumonia). Which? found at least 140 of these listed for sale, including 21 pillow-style holders that fasten around a baby's neck and 33 with long straws reaching into the cot. There is no safe version of this product — always hold your baby for every feed.

37 infant sleep pillows marketed for babies under 12 months, many labelled "newborn" or "infant" directly, or shown with a visibly young baby in the product photos. OPSS issued a formal safety alert on this category in December 2025: the pillows risk suffocation and overheating and are linked to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) — directly contradicting NHS and Lullaby Trust safer-sleep guidance, which says nothing should go in a cot with a baby under 12 months except a fitted sheet.

Why this happens

All of these products breach the UK's General Product Safety Regulations 2005, and OPSS has ordered marketplaces to remove them. The problem is scale: Which? found roughly 1,200 sleep pillows on AliExpress alone, and new near-identical listings reappear faster than platforms can act. Sue Davies, Which?'s head of consumer rights, put it bluntly: "The lives of babies are at risk because these platforms won't stop dangerous products from reaching their customers — even though they are well aware that these products can be deadly." Third-party marketplace sellers are the common thread across all three categories — not the platforms' own first-party listings, and not established UK baby brands.

How to shop safely instead

• Buy from a named, established brand — one with a real UK or EU address, a public safety record and a customer service line, not an anonymous marketplace storefront.
• Check for the actual safety standard, not just marketing words like "premium" or "breathable": BS 8510 for sleeping bags, and always confirm armholes are present in the product photos.
• Never buy a self-feeding or hands-free bottle device, however convenient the listing makes it sound — always hold your baby for feeds.
• Never buy a sleep pillow, nest, positioner or cushion for a baby under 12 months — a clear, flat, empty sleep space is the only version the NHS and Lullaby Trust endorse.
• Check live recalls before you buy something new-to-you at gov.uk's product recalls and alerts page.

Every product we recommend on Clever Mum is from an established, named brand, and every roundup carries a "buy-safe check" for its category showing the relevant UK standard and what to physically check before you buy — see our best sleeping bags and best bottles & teethers guides for our vetted picks in the exact categories this investigation covered.