browse this site you are agreeing to our use of cookies. Click here to find outA toddler stands up proudly in their high chair, they lose their balance and they take a tumble. The result can cause some traumatic injuries. In response, every high chair sold in the U.S. is required to come with a safety harness. But how does just adding on a harness ensure that a busy parent will remember (or be willing) to use it every time? Or, for that matter, how does including a harness in a box even ensure that a parent will even install it in the first place? The BabyBjörn High Chair, a Red Dot winner dreamed up by Ergonomidesign, cleverly solves these problems. Rather than harnessing in a child to be fed from a high chair’s tray table, the tray table simply becomes the harness. The surface locks the child down like they’re going on a roller-coaster ride. "We wanted to make a chair where you, the parent or caretaker, automatically make sure the child is securely fastened," project lead Håkan Bergkvist tells Co.Design.
"On our chair all you have to do is flip up the adjustable table and the child is secured." In other words, if you want to feed your child—the whole purpose of putting them in that high chair in the first place—you’ll need to flip up the harnessing mechanism. By tying safety to the BabyBjörn High Chair’s primary function, smart design necessitates that the chair will always be used safely. There’s simply no alternative. Yet ironically, the BabyBjörn High Chair’s safety mechanism is so invisible that it doesn’t meet U.S. regulations. "Because of standard requirements in the U.S., the chair is also equipped with a traditional harness there," Bergkvist tells us.Bergkvist’s team was "left free to start from scratch" with the design, to dream up a better solution to chairs with complicated straps. That design will be unadulterated across Europe, where no such harness standards exist. But in the U.S., parents receive an overbuilt solution, wasting both their time (the very existence of a strap implies that it should be used), their money (someone has to pay for this extra component), and material resources (if BabyBjörn sells 20,000 of these chairs, that’s a lot of fabric that we never needed to produce).
The purpose of iterative design is to approach known ideas in a better way. By their very nature, the most watershed designs probably won’t have been considered before—they’re new ideas because they’re new ideas. So how can anyone be expected to dream up the products of the future when they’re boxed in by the semantic limitations of the past? Or, maybe more importantly, why should they? Never miss a story. I'd also like to receive special Fast Company offersIf there's one thing Ikea's famous for, it's meatballs. If there's two things, it's cheap, stylish furniture. Value engineering the hell out that furniture year in and year out, to squeeze every possible penny of profit out of a $20 high chair. And when they go too far, the CPSC steps in to help. And so Ikea has recalled 169,000 Antilop high chairs made between 2006-10, after at least eight reports of kids falling out of the safety straps. Stronger replacement straps are available from the retailer, which are presumably like the ones used since Jan 2010?
If the straps from 2010 onwards are stronger and hence, unaffected, did it really take two years for this issue to work its way through the system? The CPSC's recall notice says Ikea's incident reports are "worldwide," not [just] in the US. But presumably, the company has not reporting Antilop buckle incidents in Belgium to the US government. So there were enough incidents reported to Ikea before 2010 to prompt the company to strengthen the strap/buckle. But none that triggered a US recall. Does that mean Ikea and the CPSC had a 2+ year back-and-forth over whether to recall the high chair, which babies are falling out of? Given the way the CPSC has gone after dropside cribs and finger-chopping umbrella strollers, I doubt it. Here's what I think happened: two US consumers filed complaints about the Antilop buckle on the CPSC's SaferProducts.gov database, which prompted an investigation, which revealed other incidents and the company's design change, which led to the recall.
Check out this parent's complaint, filed in July 2011: saying that her 2.5yo pulled the buckle off of their c.2009 Antilop high chair. Ikea's official response to both was to "contact IKEA customer service. And four months later--including the holidays--there's a recall. So the public database is having a direct effect. Put that on your salmon and smoke it. IKEA Recalls to Repair High Chairs Due to Fall Hazard [cpsc, thanks dt reader melanie] IKEA have asked anyone who owns an ANTILOP high chair to check the supplier number and production date (which you can find on the underside of the seat), after concerns were raised about the safety of the high chair’s belt. According to the IKEA website, the belt can open unexpectedly in use, creating a risk of falling. IKEA has received eight reports of the belt opening, including three resulting in minor injury when a child fell from the high chair. Here’s what you need to know if you own an IKEA ANTILOP high chair:
Only ANTILOP high chairs from supplier #17389 with production dates 0607-0911 (YYMM) are affected. The supplier number and production date are moulded into the underside of the seat: If you think you own one of the affected high chairs, you can contact IKEA customer services on 020 3645 0000 to receive a replacement belt, free of charge. IKEA has said that no other high chairs are affected by this issue. Update: IKEA have now said that a recall from 2012 was mistakenly republished on their website on Wednesday 3rd June 2015. The information above applies only to high chairs with production dates 0607-0911. See more product recalls in our slideshow:We've Updated Our Terms Of Service. By continuing on the site, you agree to the site's updated Terms of Service. High Chairs & Boosters Recalls Is your child's high chair or booster chair safe? Product Recall Finder to make sure your child's baby gear is not recalled. Find out more about recent recalls from Graco, The First Years, and more.
Safety 1st Decor Wood Highchairs High Chairs & Boosters OXO Nest Booster Seats Mima Moon High Chairs Dream On Me High Chair BabyHome USA High Chairs ValcoBaby Booster Seats for Strollers Unique Baby Products USA LLC, d/b/a ValcoBaby Dream On Me Bistro High Chairs Dream On Me Inc. Graco Classic Wood High Chairs Graco Children's Products Inc. Chicco Polly High Chairs Evenflo Convertible High Chairs IKEA ANTILOP High Chairs IKEA North America Services LLC Target Circo Child Booster Seats Dorel Juvenile Group Infant, Convertible, and Booster Child Restraint Systems High Chairs & Boosters, Strollers Fisher-Price Healthy Care High Chairs Fisher-Price Close to Me High Chairs Fisher-Price Easy Clean High Chairs Graco Recalls Harmony High Chairs Graco Children's Products Inc., of Atlanta, Ga. Evenflo Majestic High Chairs Evenflo Envision High Chairs Fisher-Price 3-in-1 High Chairs
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