Baby Care Magazines International is the association of trade magazines that significantly publish information on the baby care products and children clothing industry and market. The BCMI aims to ensure that its membership represents a leading trade journal in each country. Right now the association has the following members:

• China: Nursery China, May Liang
• England: Nursery Today, Penny Franks
• Germany: baby&junior, Tanja Kraemer
• Netherlands: BabyWereld, Carola Siksma-Ruiters
• Norway: Baby, Hobby & Leketøy, Anne-Grethe Burø
• Poland: Branza Dziecieca, Urszula Kaszubowska
• Spain: Puericultura Market, Emili Alsina
• Sweden: Lek & Babyrevyn, Lena Hedö
  The BCMI members after its annual meeting at the BCMI booth in Cologne, Kind + Jugend 2019.

  

BCMI members 2018 after its annual meeting at Kind + Jugend in Cologne.

BCMI members together with Koelnmesse members at Kind + Jugend 2017 in Cologne.

The Association was formed with the objective of achieving closer co-operation between leading baby care products and children clothing trade magazines throughout Europe. This co-operation extends to:

• Exchanging information about the relevant market as developments occur.
• Members agreeing to recommend each other’s journals to potential advertisers, provided there is no conflict of interest.
• Members always being willing to co-operate with each other to foster the interest of the industry and of their publications where no conflicts of interest occur.
• The Association will aim to arrange at least one baby care products or children clothing company visit per year, which should be regarded as top priority by all members.

Created in 2004, Baby Care Magazines International, at the beginning a European association, became global in 2012 when the Chinese member joined.

In September 2004, a meeting promoted by Daniele Caroli, editor-in-chief of Il Giornale dell’Infanzia, the Italian baby care products trade magazine, gathered six similar journals which decided to create an association in order to make it possibile for the members to exchange market data, branch information and articles. The meeting took place in the press room of the Kind + Jugend fair in Cologne, and the organizers of the exhibition immediately asked the members of the association to be part, on a rotation basis, of the jury of the Innovation Award, which would be launched the following year. Ever since, the annual meeting of BCMI has taken place in Cologne during Kind + Jugend.

The six founding members – Baby Hobby and Leketøy, Norway; Baby Wereld, the Netherlands; Il Giornale dell’Infanzia, Italy; K-Boetiek/K-Boutique, Belgium; Nursery Today, United Kingdom; Puericultura Market, Spain – after having approved the association’s statute, which defines rights and duties of the member magazines and promotes their cooperation, elected Caroli as President for a three-year term, at the end of which he was succeeded by Filip Werniers, editor-in-chief of K-Boetiek.

In 2008, as Werniers had left his job to join a Belgian company in the toy business, Carola Siksma-Ruiters, publisher and editor-in-chief of Baby Wereld, was elected new President.

In 2010 the association welcomed a new member, the Polish magazine Branża Dziecięca, and in 2012 two more journals joined: Leksaks Revyn (Sweden), a toy trade magazine which had added a nursery section, and Juvenile Products (now Nursery China), initially a supplement of Toy & Hobby, the official magazine of the China Toy & Juvenile Products Association.

The next changes, in September 2014, concern the entry of the tenth member, baby&junior (Germany) and the election of a new President, Marek Jankowski, publisher and editor-in-chief of Branża Dziecięca, after Siksma-Ruiters expressed the wish to be substituted having by far gone beyond the duration of her term.

In 2018 the BCMI could welcome the new member Parents’ Choice/Vibor Roditeley from Russia, but also had to say goodbye to the founding member Il Giornale dell’Infanzia. The former editor-in-Chief Daniele Caroli became the international managing editor of Parents’ Choice/Vibor Roditeley. Tanja Kraemer, editor-in-chief of baby&junior, was elected as new President after Marek Jankowski announced that he was no longer available. The Belgian magazine K-Boetiek had left the association in 2019.

All BCMI magazines were affected by the COVID pandemic since trade fairs were cancelled because of it and advertising income dwindled. The Russian magazine had to suspend publication in 2020 due to such reasons. In September 2022 most BCMI members met in Cologne during Kind + Jugend and had to choose a new president since Tanja Kraemer was no longer in charge of baby&junior: they decided to appoint Daniele Caroli in order to take advantage of his experience.

During these eighteen years, the association has consolidated its cooperation with Koelnmesse, especially as regards the Kind + Jugend Innovation Award, and its members have been invited to attend international nursery fairs such as China Kids Expo in Shanghai (since 2011), Kids’ Time in Kielce, Poland (since 2012), and Puericultura Madrid (since 2014, now no longer held). Delegations of BCMI members have also visited companies like Aerts/Childhome (Belgium), BabyBjörn (Sweden), Cybex (Germany), and attended international events staged in Europe by Dorel.

Childhome Press Days 2019: BCMI members again at Childhome Headquarters, Kontich/Belgium.

BCMI members at Childhome Headquarters, Kontich/Belgium (2017).