This popular baby chew toy can be full of mold! You Must Read This If You Have A Sophie The Giraffe At Home.
You Must Read This If You Have A Sophie The Giraffe At Home
Sophie The Giraffe has been one of the most popular baby chew toys for years now. But recent reports from parents reveal people have found mold growing inside of this cute little giraffe.
Recently, pediatric dentist Dana Chianese, who herself is a mama to two young boys, was cleaning some of her youngest’s toys, and noticed that the air coming out of his Sophie The Giraffe smelled musty. “I decided to cut into Sophie out of curiosity and discovered a science experiment living inside,” Chianese told Goodhousekeeping.com. “Smelly, ugly mold living in my infant’s favorite chew toy!”
Yes! Your Baby’s Sophie the Giraffe Toy Might Be Full of Mold
Chianese explains to GoodHousekeeping that she always cleaned the toy according to instructions, using hot, soapy water with a damp sponge and never submerging it into water. “It still hurts my heart to know that for months I allowed my babies to chew on moldy toys,” she says. “I no longer buy any chew toys with a hole or recommend any to my patients.”
And Chianese is not the only one to have made a rather grim discovery about her baby’s favorite chew toy. On Amazon, one reviewer tried to alert others to what she found when she cut the legs off of her child’s Sophie toy and even shared a picture for proof:
“Beware!! If you have a drooly baby, moisture will get in the hole and you’ll end up with mold!” says Amazon user Stephanie Opera. “We’ve had ours for two years and the entire inside is coated with black mold!”
Ok. I don’t know about you guys but I definitely do not want my baby eating mold. I got a Sophie The Giraffe for my daughter when she was a baby and it was one of her favorite toys. Yikes! A few months ago, I donated some toys to Goodwill and Sophie was one of the items I gave away. Unfortunately, I didn’t know at that time about the mold.
Do you have a Sophie The Giraffe toy at home?
Inspect it and be careful about the dangers of mold. Mold can pose a number of serious health problems that you may not realize are related to mold exposure.
After the recent reports, the company that makes this popular toy responded and advised parents to not submerge it in order to avoid mold growth. Uhmmm…..I am not convinced…a teething baby can produce lots of saliva. If you want to read the full explanation, just click HERE.
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Crystal says
A good way to prevent mold to get inside of chew toys with a hole on the bottom is to seal the hole with a hot glue gun.
Creative And Healthy Fun Food says
Thank you! Great idea 🙂
Dawn says
We have one that is 12 years old and been through 6 children.
We cut ours open after reading this and ours was as clean as could be.
It looks like it has a seal inside around the squeaker to prevent saliva from getting in. Maybe it is the older ones that do?
Jennnifer says
Honestly, this is a bunch of fear mongering. And it definitely isn’t “black mold.” Here is what a biologist had to say on the subject:
“Since my news feed has inexplicably been filled with pictures of people murdering their $25 Sophie giraffes, I thought I would do a quick note on mold: a story of facts, fiction, lies, and intrigue. Or something. So here is a message from your friendly biologist about mold.
Mold has somehow gotten a really bad reputation, even though it is literally everywhere and 99.999% harmless. These days, people will look at a picture of mildew and proclaim that it is toxic black mold and that this will cause any number of health problems from asthma to cancer. The truth is that most mold is just random harmless mold.
Most molds are dark, and many of them are black. There are certain types of mold that are considered “toxic,” and these are mostly the Stachybotrys molds that grow into, for example, the drywall of a water damaged house. This is what people are talking about when they say “toxic black mold,” but the truth is that the science is kinda unclear about whether or not even this kind of mold is dangerous, because it doesn’t seem to affect everyone the same way. The general consensus is that there is probably a link between heavy exposure to this type of mold and asthma, particularly in children.
However, most of the mold in your house isn’t this kind of mold. This is certainly not what is growing in your bathroom, or in your bath toys, or in your Sophie giraffe. The mold that you see in these places is probably mostly algae, which isn’t a fungi at all, potentially mixed with some mold, potentially mixed with some bacteria. This sounds and looks disgusting, but the thing is, this delicious mixture is actually coming from your drinking water, mostly, and possibly your body, and possibly the air, but in any event, you are literally covered inside and out with it no matter what you do. Any time someone opens up a bath toy and gets upset about the gunk inside, I have to laugh, because you should seriously see the inside of the pipes that bring your fresh water. You’d never sleep again.
So, when do you need to worry about mold? You should worry about mold if you are immunosuppressed, have a specific allergy, or if it is growing out of your walls. The mold that you see in your bathtub or your windowsill is not something to panic about.
How do you get rid of mold? Mold is, like I said, everywhere, so the trick to keeping it from taking over your space is to keep things dry. Dehumidifiers, damp-rid, and just regular airing out will usually keep mold from becoming a visible problem. When it’s already there, you have two good options for cleaning it: one is to use a 1:10 mixture of germicidal bleach diluted in water. There’s an interesting internet myth that bleach cannot kill mold but this is dramatically untrue. Bleach absolutely kills mold, and it kills it better than any other substance out there. What bleach can’t do is penetrate into semi-porous surfaces like caulk or rubber effectively enough to kill every last mold hyphae and spore, and because of this, you will be have to periodically retreat these kinds of surfaces or just replace them. But you can be sure that if bleach isn’t penetrating it, nothing else is penetrating it either, so there isn’t an alternative cleaner that will do a better job. The other thing you can use is isopropyl alcohol, like the drug store rubbing alcohol, which will kill mold as it evaporates and will also dry out the surfaces. Rubbing alcohol is probably better for maintenance, and bleach will do a better job of removing stains.
Lastly, I just want to point out that mold is actually part of the normal flora our bodies are exposed to and that this exposure really does help build our immune systems and keep us healthy, so when you see some mildew, don’t panic. Aside from the odd athletes foot and yeast infection, most people go their whole lives without becoming infected with anything fungal. Keep calm and don’t cut open your toys.
Some more info from the CDC on Stachybotrys:
https://www.cdc.gov/mold/stachy.htm”
– https://www.facebook.com/thefriendlybiologist/posts/1885932068359837?pnref=story
Creative And Healthy Fun Food says
Interesting. Thank you for your comment.
Ashley A says
Mold is bad love. It was not meant for a baby’s consumption with their still developing systems
Creative & Healthy Family says
I agree.
Mary Amos says
My daughter had a Shampoodle when she was a toddler. You put shampoo in it and water and when you squeezed it bubbles came out of it’s head. Even with rinsing it well, it grew algae. I cleaned it with bleach and water routinely and that took care of it.
Creative And Healthy Fun Food says
Thank you Mary!
Aime Mom says
Wondering if you could just superglue the hole in the bottom of the toy shut? I’ve seen hot glue used on squeeze bath toys for the same reason. But think it might not be safe for baby to chew on the hot glue. Does anyone else have any thoughts on this?
Creative And Healthy Fun Food says
Sounds like a good idea but I will also be concerned about the superglue.
sophielagirafe says
My baby girl has a Sophie, I have to say she loves it! It is very warm to the touch and no amount of chewing and biting seems to have really damaged the giraffe. She might be a bit more expensive than other teethers but is definitely worth the few extra bucks. But for mold issue i use glue gun.,
Creative Healthy Family says
Thanks for sharing. Great tip!
julia says
Really interesting! Thanks for informing us. My boy has the sofie the giraffe teether that is a small giraffe with two rings coming out of the sides (If you can understand which one I mean). There is no hole in that one. Plus I replace it every two months anyway ,because the rubber wears of etc. I can really recommend doing this
Creative Healthy Family says
Thank you for your comment. Glad to know it helped!