nontoxic

It won’t come in time for this year’s holiday shopping, but it’s pretty encouraging to see our Congress take a stand against the toxic chemicals in so many plastic kid toys (the same chemicals that have been obsolete in the EU for years). California led the way last year, the first state to ban even trace amounts of the plastic softening chemical in toys that’s been proven responsible for reproductive problems in boys and girls. According to the Washington Post, the growing scientific evidence that chewing on a plastic toy that includes a hormone-mimicking phthalate can cause problems was at last convincing enough to spur some legislative change.

President Bush opposed the ban, but as of January 2009 the shelves of Wal-Mart, Toys R Us and Babies R Us will be phthalate-free. According to the Washington Post story: “… House and Senate lawmakers agreed to permanently ban three types of phthalates from children's toys and to outlaw three other phthalates from products pending an extensive study of their health effects in children and pregnant women.”

I have an eight-month old daughter and everything goes in her mouth. I’ve never figured out the evolutionary purpose behind this, but am constantly replacing paper, wallets, keys and whatever else she swipes with things like wooden spoons and damp facecloths (sounds gross, but it’s been great for teething). ..

My organic babe is no longer the only child on her father's side of the family. She's now, at the ripe age of two and a half, the oldest cousin. Her new playmate arrived late last week and we spent the weekend visiting and cooing over him. She's quite smitten.

His parents, like most new parents, are becoming more and more interested in all things green. I have tried not to butt in too much, or be too obnoxious with unsolicited advice (there's nothing worse) but rather to remain available as a resource should they want to come to me. I admit that I have failed on a few occasions. Like the time I offered my services in response to a baby shower registry list they emailed around. They were quite lovely about it though, and their nursery now contains an organic crib mattress so it was a win-win situation for the baby. And it was great to be with them on site this weekend, talking about the specifics of organic versus natural chicken as we looked in their freezer, and chatting about how best to sterilize the glass canning jars they'll use to store pumped breastmilk.

I did mouth off uninvited once over the course of the weekend. I saw a big thing of Roundup in their foyer and spoke before I thought. I don't even know if it belonged to them (their building has two apartments). I thought better after I blurted out that they needed to find a better product. But no one seemed to mind. Click here for more information on why not to use Roundup:

Oh the countless emails I get asking about silver. It seems mother-in-laws like to break out their darling sons' cups/spoons/teething rings and pop them into the next generation’s mouths. Come to think of it, all grandparents like to do this – my own mother unearthed similar heirlooms for my daughter. The silver isn’t the issue, it’s the noxious silver polish used to clean the antiques off before proffering them that the moms are writing about. They’re right to ask.

Here are two silver queries I’ve gotten recently:

I had a question I was hoping you could answer. Is there a safe way to polish silver? Those nasty chemicals seem bad enough for polishing jewelry (I wear gloves when I do it) but horrifying when you think about polishing silverware you eat with or teething rattles and such. My answer has been to just leave those things tarnished, but I was wondering if there was another way?

Thanks,

Susan

and

My mother-in-law uses silver baby cups that belonged to my husband since I told her she can't use plastic -- and as we speak I am watching her polish a cup that we will be using later today -- thoughts?

Best,

Aliza

Thankfully there’s a seriously simple, eons less toxic, and readily available solution ...

I just got caught driving behind four massive trucks delivering pool water on the way to catch a train and it got me thinking about processed water and cooling off. It seems like there are so many invisible and odorless chemicals to be on the lookout for these days that super obvious ones like chlorine can get overlooked. It’s been used to clean up the water we drink, swim in and bathe in for so long because it’s cheap and very effective. But, whenever possible, it should be removed to avoid the trihalomethanes (THM) that are formed when it reacts with naturally occurring organic material in water -- and that are also suspected carcinogens.

At home, most of the chlorine in tap water is removable with a carbon carafe pitcher, and it’s of course very easy to replace conventional cleaners that contain it with greener versions, but swimming pools pose a bigger challenge. If you swim in a public pool you don’t have much control over exposure other than to steer clear of unventilated indoor ones (chlorine gases hover above the water and can damage lungs and cause asthma). If you’re thinking about putting in your own pool there are a number of companies inventing creative ways to sanitize water without chemicals. For $5,500 TechnoPure uses a low voltage DC current into a stream of water; DEL Ozone injects ozone gas into the water as it recirculates.

Yes, lots of companies are out there working on non-chlorine solutions for your pool, but the majority of people reading this are probably thinking about pools on a much smaller scale. This year I was unsuccessful finding a vinyl-free wading pool for my daughters to cool off in (if you’ve know of one do tell), and so I bought a hard plastic one at my local hardware store for $12.99 instead. The current thinking is that a soft vinyl PVC wading pool is likely to have more phthalates than a hard one, and thus the worse of two evils.

I’d love to hear about more creative solutions to trapping water to cool ourselves down. I just read some great comments from people in the south reminiscing about cooling off in whiskey barrels and the corrugated metal washing tubs of their childhoods on Grist. And since my older daughter loves to squeeze herself into small boxes and laundry baskets it made me realize she’d probably prefer cooling off in a small tub than in the one I bought her anyway.

If you have any other great ways to bring down your body temp please post. My husband and I are thinking about using an air conditioner for the first time this summer because we have small children who busily move their bodies around all day long, but we still haven’t installed it. Our secret to cooling down is to take an ice cold shower before bed and then stand in front of our commercial roll-around fan (used to cool an entire pharmacy in the Bronx forty years ago) until we have goosebumps. It takes some deep breaths to deal with standing in front of it at first, but it brings down your core temperature enough for sleep, a necessity with the 100 degrees in Brooklyn today.

Like most moms in this day and age, I belong to a local parenting message board. I had some misgivings before I got involved, as I am not much of a joiner, truth be told. I never, for example, belonged to a sorority or anything along those lines in college. But when my daughter started showing signs of really wanting to hang with people her own age at around 8 months, I did it for her. Factor it in along with the other surprises of motherhood; I’m really glad I joined. Reading the daily posts is like my own version of parenting reality television, and my daughter – and I – have made some good friends, too.

I’ve also found it to be a very interesting barometer of just how green the average parent is. Since I got on the message board over a year and a half ago, organic parenting issues have been slowly but steadily popping up. At first, a green topic would come up every few months – a query about water testing here, about safer paints for nurseries there. Then it sped up – did anyone know anything about organic crib mattresses? What else could breastmilk be stored in besides plastic bags? Obviously the lead paint in toy scares and BPA in baby bottles media blitz helped propel environmental health issues into most parents’ minds, whether they self identify as green or not. And I’ve seen on the board that these two things (lead and hormone disrupters), while nothing new, are new to these families and have really opened up their minds. Parents who formerly dismissed the idea of organic parenting are now emailing me on and off the board, coming up to me in the playground and at playgroups, asking all manner of really good, thoughtful questions. When I realized I was spending an hour or more a day responding to my neighbors’ questions, I knew it was time to offer to host a local “eco night.”

I do these – sometimes with Deirdre – fairly often. A group will come and ask me or us to talk about the top ten things pregnant moms or families can do to green their surroundings. But I haven’t done one for a group of people I know. So this will be a unique experience for me, one I’m really looking forward to. And it will have a New York focus, as we’re all New Yorkers – also something I haven’t yet done. I’m modifying my top ten list (ok I’m now at eleven) to make it city and even neighborhood-centric. The owner of a local kid’s hair cutting store/boutique called Doodle Doo’s (she just so happens to be my across the hall neighbor) has agreed to let us use her space after hours. Shortly after I posted the eco night offer, over 50 people signed up!

I prefer to talk to no more than 15 people at a time because everyone has so many questions and I like to be able to at least try to answer all of them. So I’m now doing three eco nights, all with local parents, some of them the mothers of my daughter’s friends. The first one will be this week. Depending on how it goes, I may open this up to the public and offer eco nights once a month to anyone who wants to come. I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. The Internet is wonderful and enables me to interact with parents far and wide, but I’m really excited for the opportunity to talk with people in person about their concerns. I’m hoping to be asked questions that will challenge me and force me to do more research. And to motivate people to go greener.

Here’s what I’ll be touching on (in no order, though I do tend to begin with cleaning products as switching over is such a quick and easy way to drastically reduce indoor air pollution) ...

A few posts ago, I mused about environmental health questions to ask schools before enrolling your children in them. I had been spurred to think about this by my 2-year-old, who will enter a lovely co-op nursery school (for a whopping 1.5 hours a day, 2 days a week with me or her dad in tow) this fall.

A week or so after we got our acceptance letter for preschool (anyone else think this whole process is a bit theater of the absurd?), I got a press release announcing the first green preschool in New York City: LePetitParadisPreschool.com. It also happens to be a French immersion program. Obviously the green part enticed me (good paints and toys, low flow toilets, organic snacks), and I just so happen to have majored in French in college, so I called the founder up to talk about it. I wound up writing about the school in New York Magazine, where I’m the kids editor. The short article immediately got picked up by media gossip sites like Gawker.com and people had a field day with the concept in comments.

A sample: “The phrase 'organic pre-school' brings to mind a collective of three year-olds who decided, unbidden, to band together and pre-school themselves. Which would probably be every bit as effective as mung bean puree and compact florescent Barbies at preventing these poor kids from a future of sucking at life.” ...

Springtime is ant season in Brooklyn and I'm dreading their arrival any day now. I've heard about trails of cayenne and citrus vinaigrettes that are supposed to get rid of them, but in my years in New York I've never seen a healthy approach work. It's hard to convince a landlord to spend the money on a non-toxic pest control, so this time last year we took the advice of an entomologist friend and defeated a major ant infestation without the use of any products containing organophosphates (which could interfere with the nervous system of a growing baby, infant or child, as well as cause headaches, depression and fatigue). ...

Earth Day has morphed into Earth Month. Hallmark must be taking note. Some might be disturbed by the surreal commercialism. If it motivates anyone down a greener path, I’m all for it. One thing that has been thrilling me about all of the press releases I’ve been getting (via email – no wasted paper) is how much of it is related to kids. I greened myself when I was pregnant so my daughter would have a pure place to grow, but also so as not to contribute any more toxins/chemicals/what-have-you into this world she was about to inherit. The whole 7th generation concept (I’m not referring to the cleaning products but rather what they’re named after) didn’t quite hit home the same way until I had children. I now can imagine how wonderful it will be to have grandchildren and really wonder what their world will be like. ...

Someone forwarded me an Environmental Working Group blog post about a new study wherein the CDC found toxic sunscreen chemical in 97% of Americans.
And. I. Stopped. In. My. Tracks. Jaw. Open. (Again.)
How many chemicals floating around in our bodies that aren't supposed to be in our bodies is it going to take to get some regulation? Come on people!
The chemical in question here is oxybenzone....

And now, a little how-to information on buying, wearing, and washing cloth diapers at home. But first, a giant disclaimer: Cloth diapering is like a language, and I'm not fluent. I'm going to provide you with the websites that can help you become fluent ...

Phthalates (a group of synthetic chemicals that act as a softening agent) have been getting more bad press lately. A recent article in the February issue of Pediatrics about how infants are exposed to phthalates in baby lotions, cream and wipes got me thinking. I’m moving to an apartment with a bigger kitchen in a few weeks and I’ll be able to set up a changing area close to the kitchen sink so that I can hold my daughters under the faucet instead of using wipes. A French pediatrician in lower Manhattan named Michel Cohen recommends this to all his new moms, and a friend of mine said it’s worked for her. "He calls it 'ze waterfall,'" she said. "It gets them way cleaner than wipes, and cuts down on diaper rash." ...

Yes, I'm writing about toys again. And I'll probably do it again and again until there are better regulations or until so many items are tested by legit third party organizations that it becomes crystal clear what parents can feel comfortable buying and bringing home.

I've gotten numerous requests over the years practically begging to know about safe hair dyes. We wrote about dye in The Complete Organic Pregnancy, as most pregnant woman are cautioned by regular old obstetricians with no interest in (or knowledge of) environmental health concerns to avoid it for the first trimester (and sometimes beyond). We clearly don't think this advice goes far enough. But it's a general rule of thumb for good reason. And the people asking me how to dye their hair are asking because they know studies have linked conventional hair dye to many types of cancer (see below). ...

Six great sites to help you and your baby go green.

Use nontoxic alternative cleaners — and elbow grease.