If you are pregnant or thinking of having a baby, you need to be aware of TOXINS!
A few decades ago, you rarely heard the word “toxin.” If something could poison you, you called it “poison.” Everyone knew what poisons were. They were the products labeled with a skull and crossbones like the bleach in the laundry room or the bottle of iodine in the medicine cabinet.
Today, toxin is a word on everyone’s lips, perhaps literally. But hopefully not if you’re pregnant. Late-night infomercials-which of course none of us watch-deliver urgent, low-budget warnings about toxins, then offer us the miracle of detoxification. We’re familiar with detoxification too-“detox” as the health-store clerks cozily call it-every celebrity seems to sign up for it. It’s a painless process, this detoxification, normally requiring little more than following the product directions on a bottle and eating, say, beets for a month. A tremendous value at $399.99, plus local taxes where applicable. Do not use these when pregnant. In fact, if you didn’t get the sarcasm, don’t do these EVER.
Most of us at least nod in recognition when toxins are mentioned but, if my personal practice is anything to go by, we don’t give them much effective thought otherwise. We’ve all splashed ourselves a few times with a corrosive cleaner while cleaning the toilet. We may share our region with a nuclear reactor. We’ve drunk municipal tap water all our lives. Somehow we’re still here to read this edition of Revive with Cheryl Hickey on the cover looking spectacular!
The topic of toxins can seem like new-age vagary elevated to news status by a hungry media; bowel flushes and lymph cleanses sure seem like the brain hatchlings of tree-hugging vegans and fringe health fanatics. In the face of a flood of information, what are you supposed to do when you’re pregnant, put on a radiation suit when someone walks into the office eating a non-organic apple? No… but, perhaps at the very least you should be aware of what is and what is not toxic! Why you ask?…
Scientists once thought that the womb protected developing babies from toxic pollution. But a new study of umbilical cord blood from newborns found an extensive array of industrial chemicals, pesticides and other pollutants. In 2004, researchers at the Environmental Working Group in Washington, D.C., tested cord blood from ten newborns for the presence of 413 chemicals, including a diverse range of pesticides, flame retardants and stain- and grease-proof coatings. The newborns averaged 200 contaminants, and the study identified 209 pollutants that had never before even been detected in cord blood.
Since the Second World War, an estimated 85,000 synthetic chemicals have been registered in the United States and Canada alone. Toxicological screening data are available for just 7 per cent of these chemicals. This means that tests can detect only one in fourteen chemicals. If 200 trace chemicals were found in a newborn, we might in theory be looking at as many as 2,800 synthetic chemicals in one small body.
I’ve mentioned in previous Revive Magazine editions the dangers of the plastics that deliver our food. But producing that food also employs an array of pesticides, insecticides and herbicides to kill the insects and weeds that harm the crops. These obvious toxins run off from fields and enter the water table; we’ve all heard about their effects on our collective health. Sometimes we may think about it when we pass the little organic produce counter at the supermarket, where a small number of worried pregnant mom’s prefer to buy their food. You too may choose to buy there. But as I contemplate the vast stocks of non-organic fresh produce elsewhere in the store, I’m compelled to wonder: if it weren’t for pesticides, would over 300 million North Americans even have access to these healthful, nutrient-rich fruits and vegetables? Seem like I’m flip-flopping? Well, I am… sort of. Toxins – no new age pseudo science – may, however, be more serious than I think.
We try to improve our standard of living, but with the new adhesives, carpets and building materials that outgas volatile organic compounds we create more toxin exposure for our unborn. We sand away the pre-1960 paint, and so release lead into our homes. We tear down old ceilings in schools and offices, and invisible threads of asbestos insulation float out to lodge in lungs and produce mesothelioma, a usually incurable cancer. We demand our dentist remove the amalgam from our teeth, and we’re told we’ll release a flood of mercury into our bodies. We attempt to eat more healthily by upping our fruits and vegetables, and in doing so are exposed to levels of pesticides strong enough to cause neurological disease if we are so predisposed. And if or when we finally succumb to the toxic burden and go to see our doctor, he or she prescribes us a medication that is likely to do nothing in support of our complaint but perhaps even add to our toxic burden. Is there no escape?
A growing body of scientific evidence supports the idea that toxins are toxic because they influence our hormonal balance. Let’s start by looking at some a familiar toxic substance that affects the hormones of the mother and unborn child… plastics. Plastics are everywhere and we love them. We wear them, slip our feet into them, see through them. We sit on them, eat on them, eat from them, eat with them, walk on them, drive around in them, watch them and play with them. The synthetic polymer, a critical component of the chemical industry, has in many respects become the very substance of our material lives and is impacting on the hormonal balance of the pregnant mother and unborn child.
Since the first “plastic” was invented about 1910, industrial chemists have churned out a polysyllabic catalog of plastics: polymethylmethacrylate (Plexiglas), polyesters, polyethylene, polyvinyl chloride (PVC or vinyl), polyhexamethylene adipamide (the original nylon polymer), polytetraperfluoroethylene (Teflon), polyurethane and a host of others. But these new substances have been in existence just a few generations; only now are we beginning to understand the impact they’re having on our health. And so dependent are we on plastics, even if it were proven tomorrow that they were directly linked to cancer, it might take decades-if ever-to find an alternative that would be accepted and mainstreamed. My advice, especially when pregnant, avoid all plastics. Take a prenatal with extra folic acid and lots of fish oils and avoid ALL toxins. For more information, visit www.environmentaldefence.ca.