Babies are very sensitive and tender from the time they are born. They are delicate and innocent hence they need the utmost care for their proper growth. Their sound development and well-being not only depend on the love and affection provided by parents but also on nutrition, hygiene, and safe and comfortable infant care.
Any negligence or carelessness in the quality of the baby products can hamper the health of the baby and cause multiple discomforts. Hence quality should be kept as the top priority while manufacturing and purchasing baby products.
Keeping this in mind, the Bureau of Indian Standards has formulated standards for baby products to ensure quality and safety are maintained by businesses and manufacturers.
In this article, you will learn how BIS certification ensures safety and quality in baby products.
BIS Certification for Baby Products
BIS has covered many baby products under the BIS certification marks scheme to keep the baby healthy and safe. The products on which standards have been formulated include:
- Infant foods
- Baby toilet soap
- Baby Incubators
- Baby weighing machines
- Skin powder for infants
- Baby dropside hospital cots
- Safe toys for infants
- Stadiometer
- Infantometer
- Baby diaper
- Teats for feeding bottle
- Hair shampoo for babies
Guidelines Through Indian Standards Treatment of Premature Born Babies
In many cases, when babies are born prematurely, they are shifted to incubators to keep them safe and treat them properly. An incubator is a box-like structure or a chamber, designed and constructed in such a way that it has built-in means of heating and humidifying the air and has provision for the supply of oxygen to the chamber. The Indian Standard Specification of Baby Incubators is IS 3120:1978. It has been formulated covering the performance, safety, and general requirements for electricity-heated incubators for premature babies. This was done to provide comfortable, safe, and convenient methods of maintaining the babies at a temperature and humidity prescribed by the medical authorities and doctors.
BIS has incorporated safety provisions in the standard for the satisfactory design of the apparatus while providing a fair amount of flexibility to incubator manufacturers for introducing innovations and refinements.
Secure Placement of Infants
After the babies are born, they need to be handled gently and carefully. Dropside baby hospital cots are used for placing the baby securely in the hospital. Hence it is important they have a high quality and should meet the safety standards set by BIS.
An Indian Standard Specification IS 5337:1969 Cot, dropside, baby, hospital prescribes different characteristics for dropside baby cots.
This includes requirements for dimension, material, design, quality of matres, and finish.
Here to check the quality of dropside baby cots certain tests are taken, some of which are mentioned below:
- Impact test
- Mattress test
- Adhesion test
- Performance test
Baby Nutrition
In many cases when mothers are not able to feed the baby or the baby is not able to suck milk it becomes necessary to rely on alternate sources of nutrition that provide the same level of nutrition to the baby as the mother’s milk does.
Hence infant food was made to partially or fully replace breast milk. To safeguard a baby’s health the baby products must be pure and free from chemicals and preservatives.
They have to be properly formulated so that nutritional requirements for optimal growth of infants are adequately met and physiological stress on the developing organ/enzymic systems of the infant is kept at a minimum.
In baby nutrition, the Indian Standard Specification is IS 1547:1985 Infant food and IS 11156: 1985 Infant formulae prescribe the requirements for characteristics specified and their methods of sampling and testing.
Feeding Devices
Feeding bottles are used almost universally for feeding infants. An Indian Standard Specification IS 5168:1969 Glass feeding Bottles have been formulated which prescribes the requirements and methods of sampling and testing for glass feeding bottles.
Here the things that are tested during sample testing are:
- Pattern
- Material and workmanship
- Capacity
- Dimensions finish
- Scale and graduations
- Limit of alkalinity
- Thermal shock resistance
Monitoring The Growth of Infants
To monitor the growth of the baby pediatricians utilize weighing machines to monitor growth. A controlled increase in a baby’s weight indicates its proper growth. An Indian Standard Specification IS 2489:1963 Baby Weighing Machines has been formulated to cover chiefly the technical provisions relating to baby weighing machines.
General Physical Hygiene
Baby’s skin is soft and tender, it needs proper care and nourishment to keep the baby clean and healthy. The products used in baby’s hygiene need due care during manufacturing concerning toxicity and dermatological considerations.
Baby toilet soap, and baby hair shampoo an important items for keeping babies clean. An Indian standard specification IS 10523:1983 Bbay toilet Soap has been formulated to achieve dermatological safety of toilet soaps used for babies.
In baby soaps, the use of raisins has been prohibited as it may irritate the skin. On a similar consideration, the standard prescribes a higher limit for total fatty matter, lower limits for free caustic and carbonated alkali, and additional limits for heavy metals, namely nickel, copper, and iron.
Various other baby products need BIS certification to prove their quality and safety. Some of the product’s aeries are mentioned below along with their IS standards.
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- Baby Skin Powders: IS 5339:1978 Skin powder for infants
- Baby Cloths: IS 10015 (Part-4): 1982 Size Designation of Clothes: Part 4 Infants Outwear Garments
- Safety Toys: IS 9873:1981 Safety Requirement of Toys (which covers three parts, mechanical and physical properties of toys and their toxicological and flammability requirements). A guide IS 9849:1981 Selection of Toys for different age groups of children has also been published.
In conclusion
BIS certification is mandatory for businesses that manufacture baby products. Manufacturers need to be careful and strictly maintain the quality standards. Businesses that are willing to obtain BIS certification can take guidance from the best BIS certification consultant in India. They can also get assistance from them during the entire BIS registration process.
