Published – Friday, December 17, 2021
In the absence of testing each and every brand / style / pattern of baby cup made, mass manufactured ceramic baby cups manufactured prior to 2011 should be destroyed so that they are not inadvertently used by young children, as they are likely to test positive for high levels of Lead in the glaze.
In most cases they are not compliant with current federal standards that are protective of children’s health (when it comes to the presence of toxic heavy metals – including Lead) in the glaze. I do not yet have information about the year of manufacture of the Pooh cup pictured in this post, but – after I initially published this post – a couple of different readers shared with me they have a similar cup from the 1990s (early-to-mid-1990s.) I have found highly toxic baby cups (very high lead in the glaze, not compliant with current federal regulations for Lead for items intended for use by children) manufactured as late as 2008.
Many people (parents and grandparents) also give espresso cups to babies to use, but espresso cups are not manufactured for use by children so may also have unsafe levels of heavy metals. You can read more about that on this link.
Full XRF Test Results for the Winnie the Pooh baby cup pictured:
Reading #1) Test on the white of the handle
30-second test
- Lead (Pb): 13,400 +/- 200 ppm
- Cadmium (Cd): non-detect
- Mercury (Hg): non-detect
- Bromine (Br): non-detect
- Chromium (Cr): non-detect
- Iron (Fe): 803 +/- 66 ppm
- Zinc (Zn): 15,500 +/- 200 ppm
- Zirconium (Zr): 985 +/- 19 ppm
- Barium (Ba): 170 +/- 21 ppm
- No other metals detected in consumer goods mode.
Reading #2) Test on the yellow of Pooh (outside of cup)
30-second test
- Lead (Pb): 22,500 +/- 300 ppm
- Cadmium (Cd): non-detect
- Mercury (Hg): non-detect
- Bromine (Br): non-detect
- Chromium (Cr): 812 +/- 161 ppm
- Vanadium (V): 1,621 +/- 329 ppm
- Iron (Fe): 1,286 +/- 81 ppm
- Zinc (Zn): 18,900 +/- 300 ppm
- Zirconium (Zr): 1,282 +/- 26 ppm
- Tin (Sn): 189 +/- 9 ppm
- Antimony (Sb): 48 +/- 10 ppm
- Barium (Ba): 164 +/- 25 ppm
- No other metals detected in consumer goods mode.
Each component was tested multiple times to confirm the results. Test results reported here on LeadSafeMama.com / TamaraRubin.com are accurate, science-based and replicable.
As always, thank you for reading and for sharing Lead Safe Mama posts. Please let me know if you have any questions and I will do my best to answer them personally as soon as I have a moment (which may not be right away since I have children underfoot most of the time these days!)
Tamara Rubin
Owner – Lead Safe Mama, LLC
Mother of Lead Poisoned Children
For those new to this website:
Tamara Rubin is a Federal-award-winning independent advocate for consumer goods safety and a documentary filmmaker. She is also a mother of Lead-poisoned children. Tamara’s sons were acutely Lead-poisoned in August of 2005. She began testing consumer goods for toxicants in 2009 and was the parent-advocate responsible for finding Lead in the popular fidget spinner toys in 2017. Tamara uses XRF testing (a scientific method used by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission) to test consumer goods for toxicants (specifically heavy metals), including Lead, Cadmium, Mercury, Antimony and Arsenic. All test results reported on this website are science-based, accurate and replicable. Items are tested multiple times to confirm the test results for each component tested. Please click through to this link to learn more about the testing methodology used for the test results discussed and reported on this website.
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