A new Which? investigation has found 150 potentially lethal baby products being sold to UK consumers on some of the most popular online marketplaces, including ‘self-feeding’ prop-feeders that risk choking and ‘baby sleep pillows’ that risk suffocation.

Which? researchers found potentially lethal items on Alibaba, AliExpress, Amazon, eBay, Etsy, OnBuy, TikTok Shop and Wish. Every one of these sites allowed multiple products to be sold that could lead to an infant’s death. 

Which? focused on three types of product: self-feeding products, baby sleep pillows and baby sleeping bags that Which? believes don’t meet safety standards. All of these product categories have been subject to alerts or product safety notices by the Office for Product Safety and Standards (OPSS) and Which? believes that none of them should be sold. 

Self-feeding products are designed to enable babies to bottle feed with little to no assistance from a caregiver. According to the OPSS safety alert, issued in 2022, this creates a risk of serious harm or death from choking on the feed or aspiration pneumonia (when the feed gets into the baby’s lungs), as babies do not have the dexterity or cognitive ability to control the flow of the feed or to know when to stop. The process of choking is silent, since the airway is blocked, so even a nearby parent may not realise this is happening. 

Despite the fact that the OPSS says that these products should be removed and the obvious risks associated, Which? was able to find 54 baby self-feeders for sale across Alibaba, Amazon, eBay, OnBuy and TikTok Shop. 21 of these were pillow bottle holders that fasten around a baby’s neck.

Baby sleep pillows have been linked to child fatalities in the UK and overseas. The OPSS issued a product safety alert in December 2025 stating their concerns about products marketed for babies under 12 months old. The main harms of sleep pillows are suffocation and overheating which can lead to serious injury or death in babies, and have been associated with sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). 

Despite this, Which? found 37 pillows marketed as products for infants under 12 months, many including the words ‘newborn’ or ‘infant’ in the name or description or showing a child who was obviously under 12 months old using the product. The consumer champion found these for sale on AliExpress, Amazon, Etsy, OnBuy, TikTok Shop and Wish. Product listings often mentioned using the pillows to improve sleep, or using in a crib or cot.

The OPSS issued a report in December for a giraffe shaped baby pillow for sale on Amazon. Which? researchers found several similar looking products that they believe pose the same risks for sale on the platform, including one shaped like a giraffe with imagery that shows an infant using the product. 

Many of the listings on AliExpress stated that the products should not be used with children under the age of one, but they also clearly stated ‘baby’, ‘infant’ or ‘newborn’ in the product name and included images of the product in use with infants including in cots and cribs. A reviewer of a baby pillow on AliExpress said that it was ‘way too heavy for a newborn or child under 1’. The product listings on AliExpress suggest that at least 1,200 have been sold. 

Which? researchers found 59 baby sleeping bags for sale on online marketplaces including Alibaba, AliExpress, Amazon, eBay, Etsy and Wish that they believe to be unsafe due to serious risk of suffocation. The sleeping bags include hoods which could cover a baby’s head and face or lack arm holes, or both, meaning a sleeping infant could slip down inside. Which? believes that they do not meet the required safety standards set out by the British Standards Institution (BSI), and should not be sold. 

Which? found 38 sleeping bags on Etsy that raised concerns, including one knitted sleeping bag with a hood and no arm holes that was shown covering a baby’s mouth and nose. Many of these were ‘bunny-style’ sleeping bags. 

Which? researchers spotted six baby sleeping bags on Amazon that they believe to be dangerous, some of which were orders fulfilled by Amazon itself (as opposed to third party sellers operating on Amazon). 

A baby swaddle blanket dispatched by Amazon was marketed for infants ‘aged 0-6 months,’ with a hood featuring teddy ears but no arm holes. The listing states that it can be used in the nursery and as a sleeping sack. Which? flagged the same product as a safety risk, although in brown rather than pink, to Amazon in January this year.

Which? first exposed the sale of dangerous sleeping bags in 2020 and has done so multiple times since. In the last year alone, Which? has alerted platforms to 79 baby sleeping bags that do not meet safety requirements. Six years after its first investigation, Which? believes that online marketplaces have made no meaningful progress protecting infants from these potentially lethal products.

The consumer champion found all of these products through a combination of key word searching, including phrases published in safety alerts by the OPSS, and reverse image searching. Online marketplaces claim that safety is a top priority, but the tools used by Which? are widely available and its researchers had little difficulty finding 150 examples of products that could end a baby’s life. 

Alarmingly, almost a quarter of these products were found on Amazon, which portrays itself as a market leader on detecting unsafe products.

Which? believes that online marketplaces will not take meaningful action to protect their customers unless they are compelled to do so by law and face significant fines for breaking the rules. This means that online marketplaces must be given clear responsibilities for ensuring the safety of products that they list on their sites.

The Product Regulation and Metrology Act, adopted in July last year, enables the Secretary of State to impose product safety requirements on online marketplaces through secondary legislation, but these have been delayed and the government has only recently consulted on possible changes. The government urgently needs to use these powers to ensure that products such as these are prevented from reaching UK consumers. 

Sue Davies, Which? Head of Consumer Protection Policy, said: “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. 

“Which? has shown how easy it is to find these unsafe products with simple tools, so it’s impossible for us to take companies as powerful as Amazon or eBay at their word when they claim safety is a top priority. Lives will be at risk until online marketplaces are finally forced to clean up their act. 

“The government must urgently use the new powers it has under the Product Regulation and Metrology Act to update product safety legislation and impose a clear legal duty on online marketplaces for ensuring the safety of products sold through their third-party sellers, with tough enforcement for those that fall short.”