Nursing Your Kids

Motherhood has turned me into a hippie. I breastfed my son for 22 months, started composting and gardening, began buying almost exclusively organic and local foods, I bring my own bags when I shop, I buy and use exclusively reusable water bottles, I’ve eliminated all toxic cleaning products from my house, and now I’m cloth diapering.

One of the benefits of turning into a hippie is that I’m not exposing my son to a variety of chemicals he’d otherwise be exposed to. Pesticides, weird food colorings, leaching plastics, and numerous hormones and antibiotics don’t have much opportunity to hang out in my house these days. Now that I’m pregnant with number two, I have yet another reason to be grateful I’m able to breastfeed: the absence of BPA in my future child’s system.

For those of you who aren’t aware of the current debates, Bisphenol-A, or BPA, is a controversial chemical that can leach out of can linings and plastics into your foods and beverages. Though it’s still legal to use in food grade cans and plastics, scientific studies have linked BPA to cancers, fertility problems, and behavioral problems. The Green Guide’s article on BPA says:

According to its critics, BPA mimics naturally occurring estrogen, a hormone that is part of the endocrine system, the body’s finely tuned messaging service. “These hormones control the development of the brain, the reproductive system and many other systems in the developing fetus,” says Frederick vom Saal, Ph.D., a developmental biologist at the University of Missouri. Endocrine-disrupting chemicals can duplicate, block or exaggerate hormonal responses. “The most harm is to the unborn or newborn child,” vom Saal says.

Plastic water and baby bottles, food and beverage can linings and dental sealants are the most commonly encountered uses of this chemical. Unfortunately, it doesn’t stay put. BPA has been found to leach from bottles into babies’ milk or formula; it migrates from can liners into foods and soda and from epoxy resin-lined vats into wine; and it is found in the mouths of people who’ve recently had their teeth sealed. Ninety-five percent of Americans were found to have the chemical in their urine in a 2004 biomonitoring study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The FDA says that BPA is perfectly safe and the effects of the plastics are only problematic in doses much larger than humans will consume. The fact that it can be problematic at all is what makes me pause. If there’s a possibility of harm, and newborns are especially susceptible, why is BPA present in baby formula and baby bottles?