A baby sleep gripe water sold on Amazon is recalled because it contains undeclared ethanol, methanol and isopropanol

Pacific Health Sciences has recalled one lot of Babies’ Magic Tea Baby Sleep Gripe Water, a 4-fluid-ounce dietary supplement for infants sold on Amazon, after FDA testing found alcohols that appear nowhere on the label. The company’s notice says the product contains undeclared ethanol, methanol and isopropanol. The affected lot is 25122bw, with a best-before date of 12/2028. The company announced the recall on Oct. 6, 2026, and FDA posted it the next day.

Ethanol at 8.3%, methanol at 0.35%, isopropanol at 0.48%

The numbers come straight from the FDA-posted announcement, which says FDA testing of the lot found approximately 8.3% ethanol, 0.35% methanol and 0.48% isopropanol. Gripe water is a liquid parents give infants for fussiness, gas and colic, and ethanol, methanol and isopropanol are three different alcohols that are not ingredients anyone expects in a baby product, let alone an unlisted one.

The notice does not describe specific harms, symptoms or a count of affected children. Its hazard sentence is general: the presence of the alcohols “may pose a risk depending on the amount consumed and the age and body weight of the person using the product.” Body weight is the reason the notice ties the risk to the person using the product. An infant weighs a fraction of what an adult does, so the same dropper-sized dose delivers a proportionally larger amount of whatever is in the bottle.

The page does not say how the company learned of the test results, whether FDA contacted it first, or how many bottles from lot 25122bw reached households. Those numbers would show how far the lot traveled between the distributor and the infants it was meant for, but the posting leaves them out and the company has given no further public detail.

An amber bottle in a blue box, sold through Secrets of Tea

The recalled product comes in a 4-fluid-ounce (about 118 mL) amber bottle packed in a blue cardboard box with an oral syringe. The lot number, 25122bw, is printed on the bottom of the box and on a side panel of the bottle, which is where a parent can check a product already in the nursery.

Pacific Health Sciences sold the lot to Secrets of Tea, which distributed it through online retailers including secretsoftea.com and Amazon. In the recall notice, the company states that it “has received no reports of adverse events associated with this lot,” and that the voluntary recall is being conducted with the knowledge of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Only the one lot is covered; other Babies’ Magic Tea products are not part of the notice. Secrets of Tea’s storefront lists related items such as a tummy-comfort Babies Magic Tea and a separate Baby Sleep Tea, both marketed as USDA organic herbal blends, and a read of the storefront on Oct. 9 showed no recall banner on its home page, so the FDA posting is the place the lot number is spelled out.

Return, refund and reporting instructions

Anyone holding lot 25122bw is told to stop using it and either discard it or return it to the place of purchase for a refund. Anyone who developed symptoms after using the product is directed to seek medical attention and contact Pacific Health Sciences, which lists a phone line at 310-457-1775 and an email address, [email protected], staffed Monday through Thursday from 9:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Pacific time.

Adverse reactions can also be reported to FDA through MedWatch, the agency’s safety reporting program for patients, consumers and health professionals. For a suspected poisoning, the federal Poison Help line at 1-800-222-1222 connects callers to a local poison center around the clock.

Supplements reach shelves without FDA sign-off

Gripe water recalls are not new, but the hazard changes from case to case. In 2019, Health Canada announced that all lots of one alcohol-free gripe water sold under nine store brands were being pulled after company testing found microbial contamination. The Babies’ Magic Tea lot is a different problem, undeclared chemistry rather than germs.

The gap is partly structural. FDA’s dietary supplement guidance places responsibility for safety and labeling on manufacturers and distributors before a product is marketed, and says the agency can act against an adulterated or misbranded supplement once it is on the market. In practice that means the first outside check on a supplement’s contents can come from FDA’s own laboratory after the bottle is already in homes, as the 8.3% ethanol reading in this lot shows. A bottle that left the factory with alcohols no one declared was found by testing after sale, which is the point in the process where this recall happened.

The notice leaves one fact open: it gives the percentages FDA measured but no account of how methanol and isopropanol came to be in a product sold as a baby sleep supplement.

This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.

More from Morning Overview