Make Our Breast Milk Safe!

How would you react if you found out that human breast milk, the epitome of wholesomeness and nutrition, contains levels of rocket fuel considered unsafe by the National Academy of Sciences, along with DDT, PCBs, flame retardants, pesticides, and so on and so on? According to Dr. Sandra Steingraber, an ecologist and mother, "All toxic chemicals capable of accumulating in the human food chain will, sooner or later, reach their highest concentrations in the milk of human mothers."

Well, when Mary Brune learned about this, she was scared and outraged. She should be, considering babies ingest 50 times more PCBs per pound of body weight than adults do and these chemicals can act as hormone-mimicking endocrine disrupters that cause severe damages on developing bodies, particularly their reproductive system. In fact, Dr. Santillo, a British biologist and analytical chemist, believes chemical exposure may be to blame for the declining ratio of boys to girls born between 1970 to the early 90s (it has been estimated that some 38,000 too few boys were born across the U.S.).

In response, Brune decided to start Making Our Milk Safe (MOMS) to address chemicals in the body from the perspective of nursing mothers. According to Brune, "Whether you're a blue-state mom, red-state mom, whatever -- nobody wants their kids exposed to toxic chemicals. This is a human issue -- something we all have to deal with. There is nothing more basic than a mother's right to provide clean and healthy breast milk for her child." This summer, MOMS is getting ready to launch a grassroots campaign against a baby product retailer in an effort to get the retailer to remove products containing bio-accumulating chemicals from their shelves.

Full article: Milking It [SF Gate]

Helpful Links:
- Skin Deep: in depth database on the chemicals used in over 14,000 products (thanks to my sister-in-law who pointed me to the site)
- Body Burden Test: take a test to learn which industrial chemicals are likely to be in you
- Across Generations: summary of findings on the industrial chemicals mothers and daughters share and inherit

Related posts:
- Health risks from plastic baby bottles?