Min,

These are all good questions, and ones that I wondered about before I used one with Olivia.

They do meet Australian standards....but they don't fall into the cot category, so I guess from that perspective they are probably not tested as much. In the 11 months we used ours, I cannot think of one safety issue though: they are soft without any hard sides or gaps, so this limits the safety issues.

You can really tuck a baby in well, & I found that Olivia was more secure in the hammock as she couldn't cavort around so much!

In terms of them attempting to stand....there is just no way they could. When they get very wriggly/try to roll over, they just bounce themselves off to sleep again.

The spine thing: I am looking at Olivia now and her spine is as straight as an arrow: she has lovely posture! Although I did wonder about this myself initially, and I actually asked my MCHN about it and she said that if that was the case, she dounted they would ever be allowed to be used in special care nurseries etc in hospsitals (which they are a lot). So that kind of put my mind at rest.

They are not for everyone, but I loved ours!