The average person I speak to usually assumes every baby item including highchairs, has been approved by some governmental agency. When I tell them, high chair manufacturing has been a self-regulated industry until 2011, they look at me funny. Most have no idea what “self-regulated” means. Until 2011, high chair manufactures in the US had the option to seek safety approvals from associations or none at all. For the most part the larger manufactures did seek these approvals, typically from JPMA and ASTM. These two associations require the manufacture or representative to pay a membership fee and pay each time a product reviewed or tested.

In 2011 the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSA) came into effect. This is when the self-regulation / optional testing ended. For the most part many of the larger high chair manufactures just continued using the same approval associations as they did prior to 2011. However, there was a few minor design regulation changes dealing with high chairs. The leg clearance between the tray and seat has been reduced. Other new changes deal with product identifications, warnings and safety disclosures.