Friday, May 09, 2008

BPA and Fear Mongering

I somehow missed the original hubub over BPA or Bisphenol A, and have continued as with my previous two children, to feed my baby with bottles that could cause cancer.

Part of me figures, my other kids drank from those bottles and they're fine, this is just fear mongering, trying to get consumers to toss all their plastic stuff and go shopping for "safer" products. The other part of me wonders if I should join in and go buy some glass baby bottles.

From the things I have read, it seems that putting boiling water in the bottles, microwaving them, and washing them in the dishwasher are what we should be most concerned about, although I can't find anything that says whether the plastic continues to leach the chemical after one washing/microwaving, or if it just leaches at a higher level while it is hot. If that is the case, it seems like it would be fine to just stop microwaving the formula in the bottle (which I know I'm not supposed to do anyway).

I found an interesting article called Truth and Rumors Muddy Plastics Debate and it says that in the rat research, the rats are injected with BPA, which our bodies would deal with very differently than the way we would absorb the chemical, which makes me think it's not a big deal for adults. The article also says that in infants and fetuses, because their bodies don't metabolize things the same was as an adult, it didn't make a difference if baby rats or rat fetuses were injected with BPA or if they swallowed it, it was equally harmful.

I guess the good news is that my baby just turned one, and really shouldn't be drinking from bottles anymore anyway, so I just have to make sure his cups are safe and we're good to go

Until the next scare.

1 comment:

Lisa said...

Aaah! I hate this BPA thing. I do believe there are nasty chemicals in plastic, but I don't think we really have enough reliable research (especially that could accurately be extrapolated to humans) about their effects. I have the hard plastic Avent bottles for Sawyer, and I am still using them. I never heated the formula in the microwave (I use warm water to mix it), but I do wash them in the dishwasher most of the time. Sometimes I feel like a bad mom, but I just try to roll with it. Kids sometimes get OVERprotected these days, I think, as parents buy into the fear-mongering.

I'll be eating my words when my baby starts growing a third eye, though!