Special Report: Diaper bags

But we found there is! 7NEWS bought five diaper bags in local department stores. All of them came with changing pads. We took them to a certified local lab. They tested them and the results were surprising.

Mike Zappala, ProScience Lab
"It's extremely high. These are pretty much off the scale."

If paint tests higher than 600 parts per million for lead, it's considered toxic. On this bag, the tan fabric near the zipper tested way above that: 1489 parts per million. That's twice the limit for lead paint! And the outside fabric on this bag was about the same: 1476 parts per million.

Mike Zappala, ProScience Lab
"I didn't think that these children's things would have you know, this much lead in it."

Even more troubling is that the two changing pads in two different bags had high levels of lead. The changing pad from this bag had 1453 parts per million. And the changing pad from this leopard bag had the highest levels of lead: 2269 parts per million. That's more than 3 times the limit for paint!

"You're saying that's three times the amount of lead, that's terribly disturbing," says another young woman.

Health advocates agree.

Eric Weltman, Massachusetts Public Health Association
"There is no safe level of lead particularly to developing children. Parents shouldn't have to worry about whether the products that they are buying for their children contains what is an invisible toxic substance."

What most parents found alarming: the changing pad comes in direct contact with your baby. And infants sometimes bite and chew them while being changed.

Vigdis, concerned mother
"You wouldn't want it on their skin, you wouldn't want it in her mouth. They take everything and put it in their mouth and chew on it, so it's kind of disconcerting that these things are out there."

The government's main watchdog, The Consumer Product Safety Commission, considers diaper bags and the changing pads inside them adult products saying "we believe the exposure to a child would be minimal."

One state senator disagrees.

Senator Steven Tolman, (D) Watertown
"When I meet with some of my colleagues and tell them about this, I think there'll be an outrage and I think that we'll be getting very, very aggressive."

The Massachusetts Department of Public Health is looking into these bags. But right now, there is no protection for parents, who may not know their babies could be coming in contact with a hidden hazard.

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