CPSC vs. FDA: Which Agency Actually Handles Your Baby's Recalls
TL;DR: CPSC handles baby gear and toys. FDA handles formula and baby food. Match the product to the agency, and you'll always know where to check.
Two different US federal agencies issue baby product recalls, and they split the work strictly by product type: gear versus food. Once you know the split, you always know where to look.
The short version
The Consumer Product Safety Commission covers durable goods: cribs, car seats, strollers, high chairs, toys, baby monitors, swings, bassinets. If your baby sits in it, sleeps in it, rides in it, or plays with it, CPSC is the agency behind the recall.
The Food and Drug Administration covers what your baby eats: formula, pouches, purees, teething biscuits, and any packaged baby food. If it goes in your baby's mouth as food, FDA handles it.
Object or food: that's the entire split.
Why two agencies exist at all
CPSC regulates consumer products broadly, from lawnmowers to cribs, and baby gear is one category among many. FDA has regulated food safety for over a century and kept that authority when infant formula and baby food came along.
Neither agency was built with babies in mind specifically. The boundary between them runs along product category: gear on one side, food on the other.
That means a car seat recall and a formula recall run through two separate systems, each with its own database, press format, and alert sign-up. Checking one and assuming you've covered the other is the easiest mistake to make. Check both when you're not sure which applies.
Where each agency actually publishes recalls
CPSC recalls live at cpsc.gov/Recalls. Each listing names the hazard, the remedy, and the batch or model numbers affected. You can also subscribe to CPSC email alerts directly.
FDA recalls live at fda.gov/safety/recalls-market-withdrawals-safety-alerts. Formula recalls in particular often show up first as a manufacturer press release that FDA then posts, so the same product can appear on the brand's own site and on FDA's page within the same day.
The edge cases worth knowing
A few products blur the line, and it's worth knowing which side they land on ahead of time.
Teethers and pacifiers are CPSC, even though they go in your baby's mouth, because they're regulated as consumer products, not food. Baby food pouches and jars are FDA. Bottles and sippy cups are CPSC. Any product marketed as a supplement for infants, like vitamin D drops, falls under FDA.
If you're ever unsure which agency covers something, search both. It costs you two minutes and it's the only way to be certain.
A few more categories that don't fit the obvious pattern:
- Breast pumps: FDA, since they're classified as medical devices
- Bath seats and bath toys: CPSC
- Diaper cream, sunscreen, and anything applied to skin: FDA
There's no separate state-level recall system to worry about either. Every US baby product recall runs through one of these two federal agencies, so once you know which one applies, you're done searching.
One thing that helps no matter which agency is involved
Registering a product with its manufacturer gets you notified directly if something goes wrong, rather than relying on a recall database alone. Skip it, and you'll hear about a recall secondhand, sometimes weeks after it happened. Registration takes under a minute per product and works the same way whether the item falls under CPSC or FDA.
What this means for your Saturday
In practice, checking both databases every time you buy something new isn't realistic with a baby in the house. You check once, if at all, and then forget the product exists until something goes wrong.
Pouch closes that gap. We track CPSC and FDA recalls for you, match them against the products you tell us you own, and only message you when something is actually relevant to your family. You never have to work out which agency to check.
Add your products to Pouch, free →
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