Does Plastic teething toy have microplastics?
The short answer
An object designed to be chewed, hard, by an infant, for months. Abrasion is not a side effect here — it is the entire function of the product, and it happens inside the mouth.
Why Plastic teething toy scores 53
Sustained biting and gnawing is the most concentrated mechanical abrasion of any product we score, and it is applied in the mouth
Used during the developmental window with the highest intake per kilogram of body weight
Water-filled and gel-filled teethers add a chilled fluid behind a thin polymer wall
Visible tooth marks and roughening are the material giving way
Where the 53 comes from
Five components, added. The page renders the parts rather than a stored total, so the number cannot disagree with the reasoning behind it.
- Packaging contact
- 20 / 30
- Use conditions
- 22 / 25
- Measured release
- 6 / 25
- Polymer behaviour
- 5 / 10
- Processing
- 0 / 10
What material touches the contents, over how much surface area, for how long. Glass and steel score near zero here; a film pressed against fatty food scores near the top.
Heat, abrasion, flexing, repeated opening, reuse beyond design life. The same bottle scores differently in a fridge and in a hot car.
What a laboratory actually counted, for this product or its category. A high number here means real particles were measured, not that the material looks suspicious.
How this specific polymer behaves — brittleness, fat solubility of its additives, thermal stability, whether it is a polymer named in existing restrictions.
What happened before you bought it. Retort sterilisation inside the pack, hot-filling, and pressurised brewing all happen at the most migration-favourable moment.
What we don't know
Not measured, in any material. Silicone teethers are generally considered more stable than hard plastics and that expectation rests on materials science rather than on a study of teethers. Grade D throughout the category.
This section is on every page in the database, including the ones where the answer is comfortable. How evidence grades work →
Better options
Ordered by how much they change, not by how much they cost.
Natural rubber teether
one-piece, no fill, biodegrades
Chilled damp muslin
what was used before the category existed, and it works
Replace any teether with visible tooth damage
roughened polymer sheds more than smooth
Check the one in your nursery
This page scores Plastic teething toy as a product. Formulations, packaging and suppliers change, and the specific item you own has its own condition — a scratched pan and a new one are not the same object. Scan yours for a score built from what is actually in front of you.
Scan my baby & toddlerSources behind this score
Each with the finding we use it for and the limitation that finding carries — because a study quoted without its boundaries is how this subject got so noisy.
- peer-reviewed2020
Li 2020 (Nature Food) — Polypropylene infant bottles prepared to WHO sterilisation guidance released 1.3–16.2 million microplastic particles per litre of formula.
Limitation: Release scaled with water temperature — the highest numbers came from the 70°C step WHO recommends for killing bacteria. The study explicitly did not recommend abandoning that step, and no health outcome was measured.
- peer-reviewed2022
Zangmeister 2022 (NIST) — Nylon bags, LDPE food-storage bags and similar single-use plastics shed trillions of sub-100 nm particles per litre in ordinary contact with water.
Limitation: Deionised water at controlled temperature. Nanoparticle counts are inherently large numbers; the study is about their existence and quantity, not their fate in the body.
- peer-reviewed2023
Yadav 2023 — Chopping on a plastic board generated an estimated 14.5–71.9 million polypropylene microplastics per person per year, and around 79.4 million from a polyethylene board.
Limitation: Controlled chopping by a set protocol, extrapolated to annual figures. Real kitchens vary enormously in board use, knife type and replacement frequency.