Now that I'm finished reading mandatory textbooks (woohoo!), I can get back to reading that I want to do. After my birthday, I ordered a ton of used books for cheap with my Amazon gift cards, so I have a stack to get through. The great thing is that I have a lot to add to my lending library AND I still have about half the gift cards left for some fun things for me.
I always read the books in my lending library first, so I know what info I'm putting out to my clients and which books I can recommend to certain families. So, the first book in my stack was Organic Baby: Simple Steps for Healthy Living by Kimberly Rider from 2007. It's a hardcover spiral book, and it's a quick read, so I skimmed through most of it. What I liked about it is that the author lists some of the chemicals in common baby items and describes why they can be dangerous. She gives some alternatives on materials and choices. Overall, she's very pro-natural birth and breastfeeding.
What I did not like about the book was that I ended up feeling totally hopeless and yet guilty at the same time once I finished reading it. The hopeless part came from feeling like no matter what I choose to use, buy, or eat, my home and body will still always be full of contaminants and chemicals. Basically, every material that wasn't organic unbleached cotton (read: expensive and hard to find) was bad.
Her alternative for bedding, if you can't afford the good stuff, was to use "gently used hand-me-downs" because "they're less likely to emit fumes or be laden with toxic coatings." Yikes. And of course, everything should be washed in a nondetergent, fragrance-free laundry soap and then air dried.
She attacks flooring - "However innocuous it may look, flooring is often one of the most environmentally unsafe parts of a house. Traditional wood floors are lacquered with chemical finishes, and traditional carpets are fabricated with more petrochemicals than most of us knew to exist." Well, heck. I'll just give up now.
On baby clothing, she writes, "On its way to becoming clothing, cotton is bathed in petroleum products, heavy metals, flame and stain retardants, ammonia, and formaldehyde. These chemical fabric finishes, some of which provide that 'permanent press' look and feel, are very toxic. Al have been shown to cause illness."
The worst part was her description of the playground - "Materials, materials, materials. They are the big concern when it comes to the playground, and thankfully they've improved dramatically in recent years. (Remember the monkey bars placed over concrete?) Still, you may find pressure-treated wood, often green-colored - it can contain arsenic. Also a hazard is wood chips, or 'tan bark,' which can give children splinters. New 'plastic wood' does off-gas chemicals but is fairly inert. Your best bet is a play structure made of solid wood, such as redwood, teak, or ipe. Plus, don't forget to sift through the sandbox for sharp objects!"
Really? Monkey bars over concrete!? Oh, the horror.
Do her kids live in a bubble? Oh no, wait. According to the back cover, the author lives in Marin County with her husband and baby son. Of course. Marin County. That explains a lot.
I'm still thinking about whether to keep this book in my library. I know some couple from Piedmont will love it, so I'll hang on to it for awhile and see what the reaction will be. I guess it's just a little too unpractical for me. It does have three out of five stars on Amazon, though.
1 comment:
it's worth keeping in the library. it's unrealistic to follow it to the tee but as for the information, it's an eye-opener to the toxic environment we've created for our little ones --- let alone, us Adults. we went the unbleached organic cotton cloth diaper route. at the same time, while K is drinking his organic whole milke while eating his organic applesauce in the BPA-free container, his other hand is also tightly gripping a hormone and antibiotic filled chicken nugget from Wendy's. can't win them all.....
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