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Smart discussion of the latest science and news on toxins in your food, water, and air, and what government agencies should be doing to protect public health. Written by EWG staff.
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« But mom, they're pretty. | Main | A new target for deadly lead? »
Toxic babies
It's hard to talk about pregnancy without talking about a woman's right to give birth to pollution-free babies.
In 2004, EWG tested umbilical cord blood of 10 babies born in U.S. hospitals and found a total of 287 chemicals, an average of 200 chemical per child! All this at the time of the infant's most critical period of development of the baby, when it needs a chemical-free and nutrient-rich environment, not an industrial site! That those chemicals are present in its mother's womb is wrong on so many levels!
But babies are not just born pre-polluted due to environmental factors, they are harder to conceive. According to the Telegraph, newspaper in Calcutta, India:
"A study of 100 childless couples who have experienced early miscarriage in the past two years revealed genetic deficiencies in sperms produced by almost 55 per cent of the males in the group. The common factor was constant exposure to air pollution."
The Telegraph further reports around 15 to 20 per cent of all pregnancies in India were ending in miscarriage, because males, exposed to pollution, were producing defective sperm.
But you don't have to go as far as India. You can go to the U.S. farmlands to encounter dangerous agricultural chemicals. According to Sandra Steingraber, the author of the book "Living Downstream," chemicalization of farming has sent toxic farm chemicals downstream and into contact with people.
We are all interconnected. The choices that people make in one part of the world affect the people on the other side of the blog. Those choices affect whether others enjoy basic human rights and necessities. The right to food. The right to give birth to non-polluted babies.
My dear friend is pregnant with her second, and has been reading about organic and green pregnancies. I just keep thinking, why don't the drs ever tell you this stuff? The list of products you shouldn't use when you're pregnant stretch beyond permanent hair color, yet they don't tell you anything. And they focus on specific foods rather than encouraging pregnant women to eat natural, organic foods or to avoid toxic household cleaners. I think we also have a right to competent doctors that will guide us and provide us with critical information to help us do all we can to limit the toxins we expose our fetuses to.