Kids these days...

Kids these days are exposed to more and more chemicals and may be especially vulnerable to the chemicals we use in our homes each day.  Think about it.  Children spend more time playing on the floor, putting their toys and/or fingers in their mouths.  What do you use on your carpets and other flooring?  How many chemicals do you spray somewhere in a room - but where does it settle?  (Think room deoderizers, hairspray, dusting spray, furniture polish, glass cleaners...) Some experts have even suggested that children's skin is likely to absorb more chemicals than adults (think sunscreen, bug spray, lotion, bubble bath, shampoo...).  Pound for pound, children also breathe more air than adults (remember how they say indoor air is more toxic than the air outside - yet another reason to get those kids outside playing for awhile after school).

But, the chemical exposure starts before birth.  In Green Up Your Cleanup, Jill Potvin Schoff says, "A study by the Environmental Working group tested the umbilical-cord blood of 10 American babies born in 2004 and found an average of 200  industrial chemicals and pollutants in each baby's blood."  True, that is a small sample, but do you really think it would be significantly less in a larger sample?

And all those chemicals we're exposed to - the thousands each day - are cumulative.  "Toxins build up in your body over time.  This is what scientists are now calling 'body burden'. . . . The EPA estimates that every American has more than 700 pollutants in his or her body.  And we have no way of knowing how this kind of low-dose exposure will affect people over the course of their lives" (Potvin Schoff).

The website "Chemical Body Burden" has some interesting information. The case study about phthalates mentioned something I had not thought about, but all parents might want to consider: Is your child teething?  Think again about putting that plastic teether in their mouth.  Perhaps the organic cotton teethers would be healthier - I put some in my amazon store the other day without appreciating the full extent to why these might be better.

Golly, it's never ending!  We can't eliminate everything, but we can make better choices and reduce our exposure.  Have you thought of other ways to decrease exposure?  Let me know.

Here's to healthier kids!