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Amber Teething Necklaces Safety

Keeping Children Safe in the Early Years

Do you have babies or children in your care who wear amber teething necklaces?

ROSPA guidance: information from The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA) raises concerns about these necklaces. The article states –

‘Concerns have been raised about amber teething necklaces representing a choking hazard. The main concern relates to the beads and clasps which can become detached. There are also inherent strangulation hazards associated with having any type of cord placed around a child's and especially a baby's, neck. RoSPA does not advocate any cord being placed around any baby's neck at any time.’

http://www.rospa.com/home-safety/advice/product/baltic-amber-beads/

Statutory requirements: the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) for childminders places a duty on childcare providers to keep children safe from harm and promote their welfare. Early years providers should carry out a robust risk assessment if parents want a baby or child to wear an amber teething necklace while in the setting. Ofsted expect providers to take a common sense and proportionate approach to risk.

Involving parents: early years providers must comply with the EYFS requirement to request input from parents in different aspects of provision and to share information with parents. To comply, providers might ask parents to be involved in the risk assessment –

• Share information with parents to help them understand the risks to their baby / child from strangulation or choking from the beads and / or clasps if they become detached.
• Provide parents with alternative ideas for helping their child with teething.
• Send (email or print) the above RoSPA link to parents to help them make an informed decision about the safety of using amber teething necklaces at home.
• Remind parents that teething is a normal developmental milestone in children and pain and discomfort from the symptoms are temporary.

If parents continue to insist that their child wears an amber teething necklace during the day when they are in your care, you will need to do a risk assessment.

Risk assessment considerations relating to babies or children wearing amber teething necklaces might include –

• On arrival – visually check the necklace on arrival to ensure parts are not loose.
• Sleep time – remove the necklace when baby is sleeping (along with hair clips and bobbles) to keep them safe.
• Threading - are the beads tied individually so, if the necklace snaps, only one bead is lost? According to research this type of necklaces are designed to break easily to reduce the risk of strangulation, but consideration must be given to whether this increases the risk of choking.
• Small parts – to keep children safe from choking on small parts, check the beads with a choking tube and ensure the fixings are well made.
• Older children – as a childminder you work in a mixed age setting and might have other children in your care who might grab out for or pull the necklace. This increases the risk of the necklace snapping and the children choking on small parts or the beads becoming lodged in one of the children's airway, nose or ear.
• Ongoing checks – visually check the necklace through the day to ensure parts do not become loose and the elastic is not over-stretched.

Record keeping: in relation to written risk assessments, the EYFS states, ‘Childminders must determine where it is helpful to make some written risk assessments in relation to specific issues, to inform their practice, and to demonstrate how they are managing risks if asked by parents and/or carers or inspectors.’

Risk assessment, written or otherwise, does not in itself keep children safe. Sensible risk management cannot remove all risks – for example, you might reduce the risk of choking or strangulation by asking parents not to send their child to the provision wearing an amber bead necklace, but a child might choke when eating or be strangled by a skipping rope in the garden.  However, risk assessment is designed to reduce hazards to a manageable level. Therefore, after completing the risk assessment and sharing it with parents, it is important that providers use it as a tool to enable children’s safety.