I thought my daughter’s favourite toy was harmless. Then I learned about 'forever chemicals'
The UK must ban PFAS and hormone-disrupting chemicals in children’s toys, writes author Helen Jukes
20 Sep 2026, 06:00 | Updated: 11h ago
By Helen Jukes
My daughter was born at the start of lockdown.
Changes to laws on toxic chemicals in children’s toys cannot come soon enough
Friends and family couldn’t visit; instead, her first weeks were punctuated by carefully wrapped parcels delivered to our doorstep by the postman. Among these was a stuffed bunny rabbit which has since been dragged through puddles, around hedgerows, on car journeys, and into bed night after night after night.
Six years on, the bunny is still a favourite, and accompanies most bedtimes – a cosy scene, but also, according to new findings published in a scientific journal, a potentially toxic one.
When I became a new mother I knew very little about PFAS, a group of substances more commonly known as ‘forever chemicals’. What I learned led me to write a book, Mother Animal– a memoir about motherhood, nature and the intimate incursions of chemical pollution on maternal and infant bodies. I’ve become so familiar with this topic that I should no longer be shocked when new findings come to light – and yet I am, over and over again.
In the study, researchers tested 18 stuffed toys and found that every single one contained PFAS. Also testing how these chemicals could transfer to children’s saliva when toys inevitably end up in their mouths, the scientists concluded that stuffed toys are a ‘relevant and often under-appreciated source of early-life PFAS exposure’. Had the cuddly rabbit been leaching toxic chemicals into my child’s body all along?
PFAS have been linked to a wide range of health impacts, including thyroid disease, liver damage, and various cancers. They can also build up in the human body over time and scientists find them everywhere they look.
I was pregnant when I began researching Mother Animal, and grasped that even in utero my unborn child was being exposed to pollutants I’d absorbed over decades, and likely ones passed to me from my own mother too. Mountains of peer-reviewed research papers showed me what world-leading experts have been shouting for decades: we are all constantly being exposed to harmful pollutants. They are in our air, our drinking water, our homes and our wombs; they’re even in children’s toys. Chemical regulation lags vastly behind what the science shows is harmful, and children are especially vulnerable to harmful chemicals, even at extremely low levels, because their bodies and brains are still developing.
What can we do about all this as parents? Thankfully, there are ways to reduce children’s exposure at home, and the charity CHEM Trust has some useful hints and tips here. But the truth is, there is currently no way to know what toxic substances are in the toys, paints, glues and glitters our children beg us to buy because – despite mounting evidence of negative effects – many kinds of harmful chemicals are allowed in toys.
The products we give our children should be safe; we should be able to trust that dangerous chemicals won’t make it onto shelves in the first place. Clearly, we need a more systemic change.
Last year, the EU took a huge step forward in banning PFAS and hormone-disrupting chemicals in children’s toys. Thankfully, the UK government is now considering a similar step via a call for evidence which closes on 6th October. I’m hoping against hope that they’ll act definitively and with wisdom, which is why I’m doing all I can to support CHEM Trust’s campaign for toxic-free toys, which you can join and learn more about here.
I’ll never know what pollutants my daughter’s stuffed bunny harboured, but I do know that a ban like the one being considered would nudge us closer to a world where children can love, play and grow in safety, with toys that nourish their development, as they were always supposed to.
Helen Jukes is working in partnership with charity CHEM Trust to campaign for safer toys in the UK and is the author of Mother Animal (Elliott & Thompson), now in paperback, £10.99. Available to order here.
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