UK alert on baby sleeping bags without armholes or with a hood: nearly 50 recalls and reports since 2023, with a recommendation to sell products meeting EN 16781
On 1 October 2026 the UK Office for Product Safety and Standards (OPSS) issued Product Safety Alert PSA9 on baby sleeping bags without armholes or with a hood that are intended for unsupervised sleep in a crib or cot. The alert does not apply to sleeping bags meeting the voluntary standard BS EN 16781:2018.
- According to OPSS, without armholes a baby may slip down into the sleeping bag and the material may cover the nose and mouth; a hood may also cover the face. The main harms are suffocation and overheating; the alert does not cover products designed to swaddle a baby or items worn in a pram.
- The alert follows nearly 50 recalls or product safety reports on dangerous baby sleeping bags published by OPSS since 2023. Sleeping bags intended for unsupervised sleep must have armholes and must not have a hood, and businesses must remove non-compliant products from sale; OPSS recommends that retailers and importers consider only supplying sleeping bags meeting BS EN 16781:2018.
- On the same day the UK Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) warned about online ads for baby products claiming to help with colic, reflux or sleep, following a monitoring exercise in which it identified ads promoting potentially dangerous products and practices.
- According to the catalogue of the Estonian standards body EVS, EN 16781:2018 is withdrawn from 16 September 2026 and replaced by EN 16781:2026. The new edition covers cot sleep bags for children up to 24 months and excludes, among others, products for premature or low-birthweight babies below 2.5 kg, for medical settings, for pushchairs and for car restraint systems.
Source: OPSS — Product Safety Alert: Baby Sleeping Bags (PSA9), 1.10.2026