As moms in this day and age, we are bombarded daily with media about the safety of the things we are eating, using, cleaning with, etc… Studies are popping up constantly linking potential toxins in our foods and products we use daily as being the causes of the rise in cases all sorts of diseases, especially affecting our children. It can become very overwhelming and scary quite frankly.

More and more of us are become very aware of what’s in the foods we’re eating. We’ve started seriously reading ingredients of the things we feed our families and making better choices. Grocery stores are stocking more and more organic and whole foods and prices, while still higher, are getting a bit better. We seem to be really starting to understand that what we eat matters. But what about the everyday products we use? Cleaning and beauty products especially as we breathe in these chemicals and put lotions and potions on our skin and it seeps into our bodies.

 Due to gaping loopholes in federal law, companies can put virtually any ingredient into personal care products. Even worse, the government does not require pre-market safety tests for any of them. Seriously??? This tidbit of information came from EWG, the Environmental Working Group. A quick scan of their Skin Deep site focusing on costmetic and personal products found that Target brand baby wipes have a toxicity level of 6…3-6 being Moderately Toxic and 7-10 being High Hazard. Kandoo Flushables…5. it’s disturbing.

Wait, it gets better, or worse really… a recent study conducted by EWG found over 200 common household toxic chemicals from cleaning products and beauty products found in babies placenta at birth. This is scary. So we know to watch what we eat while pregnant, but now it’s even more than that, now it’s also what we use on our bodies and the products we use when we are going through that inevitable nesting thing we do towards the end when we have that overwhelming desire to scrub everything in sight senseless and re-organize all the closets. Our babies are polluted before we even start wiping their bottoms with toxic baby wipes.

It certainly is a scary thought and let’s face it, there are more and more natural cleaners and natural products, non-toxic products on the market, but they are expensive in comparison to what we are using and with economic times being what they are, it’s tough. Perhaps making some small changes one by one, starting with the biggest offenders is the way to go, those products with giant DANGER written on them. For starters, you can visit the EWG website for more information and studies. They also have a link to their own website concerning beauty products called SkinDeep and this lists all products and their toxicity levels with safer alternatives so you can decide if maybe your favorite lipstick needs to be changed or not. Especially important is the products we use on our children, lotions and shampoos and things like that.

While you are there, please sign the petion right on the website for Skin Deep, this peition will close that loophole and force some action to make these products safe for our families.

I learned about the EWG from the Manic Mommies and their most recent podcast on the subject of Chemicals and our Children.

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