Orbit Baby Infant and Toddler Seats
So for our fourth company, I had read that Orbit Baby contained NO FLAME RETARDANTS at all in their car seats! I could not believe it! I had not focused yet on this company due to the smaller brand and expense, however, I immediately contacted them to find out what the truth was about their seats! Well, I must say to date, these are by FAR the best choice as far as chemicals. To find out why you should be avoiding these chemicals, you can watch our short, fun video here!
Orbit Baby the information below:
Jennifer to Orbit Baby:
What type of flame retardants do you use? I read what you don’t use and I heard you don’t use any….I am trying to avoid chemical flame retardants. Thanks
Jennifer Hankey
President
Organic Baby University
Orbit Baby to Organic Baby University:
Hi Jennifer,
Thank you very much for your patience and your inquiry regarding the chemical safety of Orbit Baby products. We are proud to be the only major car seat and stroller manufacturer to use fabrics and foams Oeko-Tex® certified to be free of dangerous flame retardant chemicals. You can read more about Orbit Baby’s chemical safety efforts here: http://www.orbitbaby.com/en/articles/flame-retardants/
All of Orbit Baby’s G2 products use fabrics that are certified by Oeko-Tex® Standard 100 to be completely free of PBBs, PBDEs, TRIS, TEPA, HBCDD, SCCP, and TCEP. The only flame retardants used in our certified fabrics and foam have been thoroughly tested and approved by the International Oeko-Tex Association, and you can find this list of chemicals on their website: http://www.oeko-tex.com/OekoTex100_PUBLIC/content.asp?area=hauptmenue&site=chemischaktivesubstanzen&cls=02&tr=2#ts.
In addition, our Green Edition Footmuffs feature an interior fabric that meets the FMVSS302 flame retardancy standard without the use of any chemicals at all (using a proprietary OrganicFR™ organic cotton fabric technology that was developed by Orbit Baby).
You can learn more about Orbit Baby’s overall green efforts here: http://www.orbitbaby.com/en/why-orbit-baby/green/
Kind regards,
Joel
Customer Care Coordinator
Certified Child Passenger Safety Technician #T691103
Orbit Baby Inc.
877-ORB-BABY
So what this means is they are, BY FAR, the best seat when it comes to toxic chemicals and flame retardants! They are trying to be more green and thoughtful when it comes to the types of chemicals they are exposing our children to everyday. They are forthcoming with the information other than the specific type of chemical used (which is ALWAYS a problem with companies). And they state that they meet the Oeko-Tex requirements for BOTH THE FOAM AND THE FABRIC! This certification guarantees the product to be safe from over 100 toxic chemicals! I can’t think of many things I would rather spend money on than the car seat and mattress when you think about hours spent in and on the product.
Here are some links to the different car seats available by Orbit Baby -The cheapest I can find them and this company often offers 15% coupons so make sure to check! Right now they have an 8% off if you use this link!
I will keep bringing you the rest of the major companies and their results such as Chicco, Eddie Bauer, and others as soon as they ever decide to answer my questions.
Here are the links for the previous car seat manufacturers we have blogged about:
For more information on the dangers of fire retardants in children’t products
http://www.momsrising.org/blog/flame-retardants-the-asbestos-of-our-time/
http://www.environmentalhealthnews.org/ehs/news/new-flame-retardants-in-baby-items
http://www.emedicinehealth.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=143244
Have you checked out the sunshine kids car seat? It seems to be the best on these issues…
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I’ve been looking for the least toxic infant travel system and have found the process very frustrating! Your blogs have been very helpful -THANK YOU! The Orbit Baby travel system is WAY out of our budget and I don’t believe Sunshine Kids makes a travel system. Do you have any suggestions based on your research?
My first suggestion would be to purchase one of the safer seats such as Orbit, Sunshine Kids or Cybex (review coming soon) and then trying to get a stroller on Craigslist to save some money. I believe all of them have systems as far as coordinating strollers, however, I may not be sure what you are meaning specifically as far as travel system if it different than a carrier and stroller that go together. If all three of these are out of your budget I would purchase probably the Evenflo as it is very economical, throw away the shade and buy a cover and shade. We will be suggesting good covers on a future blog or you can always go to Etsy.com and have one made if you prefer! If you have additional questions or need further assistance feel free to email us and we will do our best to help!
Also I would only use the carrier when driving or necessary for traveling, use a sling when you can to reduce exposure. It is an easy habit to just let them sleep in the carrier but I would avoid it when you can…
Do not leave the car seat in the car…especially in the heat in GA. The heat breaks down the chemicals faster. Keep it in the house where it is cooler when you are not driving.
I can’t thank you enough Jennifer! With my 3-year old, I only had the Healthy Cars info to go on, but they are so far behind in testing that you can’t find any of the “good” styles anymore. I am in the market for a toddler carseat and you helped me make an informed decision. Keep the reviews coming and thanks for the great & extensive work!!! It’s truly sad that our kids have to be exposed to this. On a happier note, I did come across these in my travels and have the car seat and stroller cover http://www.edenhome.com/p-921-summermuff-protection-for-babybr-by-summermuff.aspx and they’re on sale right now. Hopefully, it will help someone else.
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Hi Jennifer,
I wish I could afford an Orbit Baby stroller with car seat but I have limited financial resources. I figured I’d allocate more funds to non toxic bedding including mattress and crib. Anyway, if you have a solid second place infant car seat that you feel confident about, please let me know. Thank you.
-Beth
Hi Beth!
We are still working on a few of our blogs and getting more info…at this point it appears the best second place winners will be Cybex and Sunshine Kids. I would say Evenflo after that…however, we are still working on our blogs so that could change.
Also, here is also a company that makes replacement pads for very common seats that are much less expensive like Chicco and Evenflo. That way you don’t have to have any chemicals at all. These are expensive so check out their sale items! Some moms may not be comfortable with completely changing out the pad so it is a personal choice. Any warranty would be voided I believe. But it is an option that we do like to mention for moms who want zero chemicals. It is http://www.buynolliecovers.com
and if you use my name (JENNIFER) they will give you 10% off!
Thanks for the quick and detailed response. I look forward to your review on the Cybex car seat!
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Hi you rate the Orbit car seat so high but according to HealthyStuff.org it didnt pass their testing with flying colors at all. The colors they tested had a medium amount of chemicals in it which is more then some others have in their car seats. I understand their fabrics are very safe and therefore everything touching the baby is certified but what about the rest of the car seat containing these concerning chemicals? Any idea why you were told one thing but the testing came out so different.
Perl D
Sorry for the delayed response! There are a couple of things that we at OBU take into account when looking at the healthycars results. #1 is they vary wildly with even seats manufactured by the same companies, for different years, etc. Companies will state that they use Polypropylene and contain Oeko-Tek certified fabrics and foams for example and then the healthycars will rank it low. The companies like Chicco, they give very high ratings to, however, they use phosphates in their flame retardants which are NOT great at all! But, it is not one of the chemicals they test for so it gets good ratings. For the Orbit, they are third party tested for ALL of the chemicals that healthycars test for by Oeko-Tek. This is a very stringent standard and the testing is much more thorough than the healthycars who just uses a handheld device to look for chemicals. We at OBU gie a lot more weight to a third party testing that is well recognized and respected that does this as a profession. Orbit has Oeko-Tek certified foams and fabrics…the only on the market! So, there is a lot of different information out there, but we use healthycars to eliminate the worst of the worst from our choices, but when it comes to good or medium, we look for other facts to make more well rounded choices. I hope this makes some sense!
I understand what you are saying I just want to make sure its really worth the price that it is. I was looking at orbitbabys website and I see under the faq someone asked regarding the fire retardant used in their products and orbit answers.
The question was: What flame retardancy regulations do your products pass?
Answer:
“Federal Flammability Requirements for car seats:
It is a federal requirement that all car seats in the US meet strict flammability regulations, and our car seats comply with the FMVSS 302 (Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards) standards. Of the fabrics on our car seats (the Infant Car Seat and Toddler Car Seat) that come in contact with your child, some meet these requirements without containing any fire retardant chemicals. Those fabrics that do necessitate fire retardancy treatment are completely free of potentially harmful bromine-based fire retardant chemicals. The fire retardants that we do use are phosphate-based.
Other State and Federal regulations:
We make sure that all Orbit products are equally safe and free of potentially harmful fire retardants (including chlorinated and brominated chemicals like PBBs and PBDEs). As a result they easily pass all applicable state and federal requirements for flammability. [Keep in mind that some states have separate bedding regulations, which are not applicable to Orbit Baby products].
One of these applicable regulations in the state of California is California Technical Bulletin 117 (TB117). This measure lays out requirements for furniture fire safety in the state of California. It is applicable because all Orbit seats can be used in your home as “upholstered furniture.” As mentioned above, all Orbit seats pass this regulation without brominated or chlorinated flame retardants.”
Sorry to post the whole thing but as you can see they say their retardants are phosphate based as well just like so many other car seat companies. They do go on and say how safe they are trying to be but this just made me wonder. Do you know anything about this? Again I am seriously interested in the system but I want to make sure its really different then other products out there since it does cost more.
Thanks so much for all the information and for your time
Perl
Yes I am aware of this. I love to see my readers doing their homework!!! I have been in touch with the company directly many times and this is old information that needs to be updated. They did used to use phosphates. They no longer do..here is the email from the head person over there regarding this
“This is the information we had available before we switched to the Oeko-Tex fabrics in 2008. Unfortunately, I don’t think we have managed to find all the outdated sections of our website that still have this posted. Thanks for bringing this to my attention.”
I hope this help! I have been in touch with the company and have confirmed that current products have Oeko-Tek certified FOAMS AND FABRICS! I bought this for my daughter for this reason (:
Hi I checked out that website buy nollie covers and they have some nice stuff. Using those gets rid of ALL chemicals? The fire retardants and chemicals of concern are only in the seat fabric? There is foam protection under the fabric , these have nothing added to them? I have a graco rated low by healthy cars so debating if I should switch fabric and use? Or trade in for orbit set which I have access to at a great price…. Personally I like the graco weight and look better then the orbit but if the safety of the orbit is definitely guaranteed higher then my other option , I would go with it anyway.
Also was wondering what you think of the jj cole bundle me as a cover over a car seat fabric. I spoke to them and their items have no FR in them so would that help as a barrier as well?
Thanks for your time. I use the info from your blog alot!
Pep
Hi and thanks for the comment!
First, as far as the healthycars.org ratings, they only test for certain chemicals and ignore others like phosphates. They look for “the worst of the worst” if you will. We strive to avoid all chemicals where possible which is why we recommend Orbit as the fabrics and foams are Oeko-Tek certified. As far as Nollie covers, they should replace the fabric and foam. I am not sure I completely understand the question…does you seat have a styrofoam part under the cover? Regular covers that do not completely replace the entire cover and foam are better than nothing and will help with absorption of chemicals through the skin but you still have exposure through dust and inhalation. If you go the Nollicovers route you can use Jennifer as a code and get 10% off. There is also a wonderful woman on Etsy.com that has a store called The Sassy Stork that will custom make you an organic one at half price. Tell her we sent you!
Hi to answer your question about the car seat I have at the moment– when I remove the fabric of this graco there is a styrofoam hard part attached to the hard plastic bottom, with a foam piece attached in the center to the styrofoam. Those don’t seem removable so just removing the fabric and replacing it with a cover seems to still have the problematic pieces underneath. is that correct?
I doubt that part is treated. It is the foam in the pad. So if you replace the pad you should be good! Hope that helps!
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