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Here's why this cardboard baby box costs 269 Swiss francs

The Local
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Here's why this cardboard baby box costs 269 Swiss francs
The Revelation Baby Box.

Swiss company Baby Nids recently began selling cardboard boxes for babies to sleep in starting at an eye-watering price of 269 francs but argues that the high-quality raw materials and rigorous environmental standards justify the price tag.

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The firm’s cardboard crib for newborns is modelled on the so-called “Finnish baby boxes” that have received international attention in recent years.

The Finnish variety is part of a free parenting starter kit available to all mothers-to-be in the Scandinavian country. The practice began in the late 1930s in a bid to try and ensure pregnant women visited the doctor – critical in a country where close to 10 percent of babies died before they were 12 months old.

The boxes have gained popularity around the world in recent times partly because they are believed to be behind the fact that Finland has one of the lowest infant mortality rates in the world.

Read also: Swiss researchers invent light-deflecting onesies to treat jaundiced newborns 

However, while Finnish parents pay nothing for their baby box, the stylish Swiss versions produced by Baby Nids, both of which come with certified organic bedding and mattress are rather more expensive, as Swiss tabloid Blick reported on Thursday.

The Baby Box Revelation costs 269 Swiss francs while the deluxe version – the Baby Box Inedite – will set you back 389 francs.

But Baby Nids manager Cindy Sarrazin told The Local that the price for the unisex product was justified because of the extremely high environmental standards applied.

Sarrazin, a mother of four, said that the wood used in the making of her cardboard boxes came directly from the tree whereas European standards allowed for the use of recycling wood, which often contained chemicals.

The Baby Nids manager said her company’s products were the only 100-percent organic baby boxes on the market, adding that an extensive battery of laboratory tests had been carried out and she could guarantee that no toxic chemical products were present.

Sarrazin added she believed there was a market for the baby boxes in Switzerland because the country was very Nordic in its outlook and the Swiss themselves were very environmentally conscious.

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