The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission has approved a new safety standard for water bead toys to prevent injuries and deaths among children.

The CPSC rule, which was passed with a 2 to 0 vote, aims to reduce the risk of children ingesting, inserting, aspirating, or choking on water bead toys. It sets a maximum expansion size limit for the beads and establishes limits on acrylamide content to reduce toxicity.

The agency defined water beads as a “various shaped liquid absorbent polymer, composed of materials such as, but not limited to, polyacrylamide and polyacrylate, which expands when soaked in liquid.”

The new rule requires “strongly worded, easily seen warning labels” to caution consumers about the potential risks.

From 2017 to 2022, an estimated 6,300 water bead-related ingestion injuries were treated in U.S. emergency departments. There was at least one reported death — a 10-month-old girl in 2023 — due to water bead ingestion.

CPSC recommended safety tips for consumers, including:

• Removing water beads from environments where young children may be present.
• Storing water beads securely.
• Not allowing children to play with water beads unsupervised.
• Discarding the products if the beads start to come out.
• Cleaning up any water beads that roll away.
• Remembering that some products may have water beads, but are not marketed as toys.

The rule takes effect 90 days after publication in the Federal Register.

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