Monday, December 29, 2008

Keeping your child safe is manageable?

I sometimes feel like the act of protecting my children is a lost cause. Not to sound too morose but seriously... every time I turn around I learn of some hidden threat that I would have assumed to be utterly benign. Here are concerns that I have and what I've done to combat them:

1) BPA-- it seems to be lurking everywhere.... bottles, pacifiers, formula cans and containers (the plastic, premixed are apparently the worst) and good ol' fashioned canned food.
I purged my home of any glaringly obvious offending containers and bought me some crazy expensive Siggs (later found that Walgreens sells aluminum bottles, complete with carabiner for under $5... they don't have a sports attachment but hey, we're talking 75% savings here).

2) Latex-- apparently some studies reveal links between latex and cancer... this only effected us on a minor scale, since my children don't worship the binky god... we simply eliminated the remaining bottles that had latex nipples.

3) Parabens-- I am now a converted paraben-aphob. If you are not savvy to this serious (and debatable) topic, please see this link: http://www.terressentials.com/truthaboutparabens.html
We took about 3 hours to purge our medicine cabinets, showers, and pantry of ALL products containing them and replaced them. Interesting to note: not all "organic" products are pure products... and some cheap products are well ahead of the game and have eliminated the toxin from their list of ingredients. FYI: I LOVE the Tiny Tillia brand, affordable if you catch it on sale (think Fred Meyer if you've got one near by!)

4) Toys-- Seriously?! One in three toys tested are toxic? In AMERICA? See this frightening link: http://www.healthytoys.org/press.releases.php A reassessment by the FDA will address this (apparently in February of 2009) and make changes. Sadly, this will effect the mom-and-pop places that have been creating safe, green toys all along. We did our best by reviewing the list at healthytoys.org but they only tested select toys and they seemed fairly random and irrelevant in our lives so I'm sure there's a sweet sampling of toxins lurking in our toy boxes! I was confused to see that (for example) some Little People toys tested poorly and others were fine. Since we have a Little People empire, I am NOT looking forward to further test results. ALSO I have avoided the draw of the mega toy sales that are going down right now-- clearly the retailers don't want to get stuck holding the hot potato!

5) Toxins in disposable diapers--ignore for a moment that a disposable diaper reportedly takes 500 years to break-down, apparently we also have to be concerned about how consistent use is going to effect our children's (specifically boys) reproductive health! http://www.checnet.org/healtheHouse/education/articles-detail.asp?Main_ID=554 Yikes!
We considered, humming and ha-ing about switching to cloth diapers but stumbled upon the perfect solution for us: (drum roll, please!) gdiapers! Concerned as we were? Check them out and discover the hybrid diaper that has changed our lives! 50-150 days to break down in a landfill, or flush or compost the liners (pee only, of course!). Follow this link and become a believer: http://www.gdiapers.com/?gclid=CPvv_7WP55cCFQv7agodb2D_Dw

I guess when it's all said and done, the best we can do is stay current and mindful. And NETWORK. Anything I missed? Please, fill me in!