For those of you who are interested in environmental health.

Monique Beaudoin
Northeastern Ont. Community Animator/Animatrice regionale du nord-est
Ont. Healthy Communities Coalition/Coalition des Communautes en sante de l'Ontario
http://www.healthycommunities.on.ca


Thu Jan 16, 2003  01:00 AM
Breastfeeding is still best for your baby, says author
Research does show contaminants in breast milk
But `lifelong benefits' outweigh the alternative of formula

DONNA JEAN MACKINNON
STAFF REPORTER

Pregnancy for Sandra Steingraber brought an acute awareness of our
polluted atmosphere and the harm it can cause a developing fetus.  On.
Sept.  25, 1998, Steingraber had a daughter, Faith, and also the makings
of a book Having Faith: An Ecologist's Journey to Motherhood.  (Perseus
Publishing, Cambridge, $39.50).  As a professor of ecology at Cornell
University's Centre for the Environment, in New York state, Steingraber
was already tuned into environmental issues and when she applied this
expertise to her expectant body, she came up with many startling facts.
One is that mother's milk isn't all it's cracked up to be.

Breast milk is the most contaminated of all human food, according to
Steingraber, who will speak about her research at the Women's Health
Matters forum tomorrow at 2:30 p.m.  at the Metro Toronto Convention
Centre, south building.

"It carries concentrations of organochlorine pollutants that are 10 to
20 times higher than in cow's milk," she says.

DDT-style pesticides used in agriculture are the worst offenders, and
stay in breastfed humans most of their lives.  Research also shows
breastfed babies have a weaker immune system than others, she says.

"But I don't think a bottle (formula) is the answer," Steingraber says.
"The breast is the lesser of two evils.  Yes, there's less immunity, but
other lifelong benefits" (the mother-child bond, for instance).  She
adds if she didn't believe "breast is best," she would not have nursed
her daughter for three years.

"Women's bodies are the starting point for all of us," Steingraber
says.  "But the problem is contaminants that flow into our bodies often
stay with us all our lives." Nancy Bradshaw, education co-ordinator at
the Environmental Health Clinic at Women's College Hospital, agrees with
Steingraber.

"Women are the first environment for the developing fetus and anything
they have been exposed to has a tendency to be downloaded to a baby,"
says Bradshaw, who will be at the forum's Sunnybrook and Women's College
Environmental Health Clinic booth tomorrow and Saturday.  She'll
demonstrate with a mini house how to make your home more environmentally
friendly.

Bradshaw also observes that some 85 per cent of patients who visit her
clinic with environmental sensitivities are female.

One contributing factor is the fact women have higher levels (than men)
of fat as opposed to muscle, and toxins are stored in fat.  Bradshaw
also suggests because women do most of the cleaning, they are the ones
inhaling excess fumes from toxic cleaning products.

At the forum, Steingraber, who is now nursing her second child, intends
to circulate a bottle of her own breast milk to illustrate, graphically,
how susceptible it is to ingestion.

"If I've just eaten spinach, for example, it will be greener than
usual," Steingraber says.

She'll also talk about the role of the placenta.  It is supposed to
filter out bacteria but research shows toxic chemicals can "cross the
placenta without restriction" placing a fetus at risk in some cases.
Living near a hazardous waste site is perilous as solvents such as
kerosene, acetone, and benzene are all chemicals that can "cross the
placenta," she says.

There is also evidence nicotine, industrial pollutants called PCBs,
heavy metals, dioxins, car exhaust and mercury may all interfere with
the function of the protective placenta and result in birth defects.
The evils of mercury first came to scientific attention in the 1950s
when a Japanese factory town, where mercury was a by-product of
manufacturing, reported a spate of babies born with defects including
cerebral palsy, blindness, deafness, small heads, deformed teeth and
impaired central nervous systems.  It turned out all the mothers ate
fish from the local bay full of the mercury waste.

Fast forward to 2000, when an American study revealed that each year in
the U.S.  some 60,000 children are born at risk for neurodevelopmental
problems owing to prenatal exposure to mercury, due mainly to mothers
eating large amounts of seafood during pregnancy.

Steingraber also mentions a disturbing study of a Minnesota farming
community that concluded children conceived in the spring, when
pesticide use is the highest, were significantly more likely to have
birth defects than those conceived at other times.

For her book, Steingraber also consulted the American Environmental
Protection Agency, an initiative that keeps a Toxins Release Inventory.
On it, she found listed 47 different chemicals classified or suspected
to be "fetal toxicants."

"Chemical manufacturing is the single largest source of these
emissions," Steingraber says.

And if all that's not enough to fret about, flushing your toilet and
running your dishwasher are also hazardous to your health due to
by-products of chlorination.  Steingraber explains as soon as you flush,
contaminants leave the water and enter the air.

Although health professionals cannot pin down exactly what will affect a
pregnancy, Bradshaw believes it is better to be safe than sorry.

"There are simple things to be done if you are pregnant, like avoiding
paint and using organic pesticides and environmentally friendly cleaning
products," she says.

On a practical level, Ann Phillips, environmental health promoter and
researcher at the South Riverdale Community Health Centre, worked on
producing a brochure dealing with contaminants in our environment.
Hidden Exposures, Reproduction and Pregnancy explains the dangers of
pesticides, lead, paints, solvents and cleaning products pose to a
developing fetus and what to do about them.

In older houses in Toronto, for example, there is the issue of lead
paint, lead residue in backyard soil and lead piping.

"A lot of things that seem commonplace have the potential to be toxic,"
Phillips says.

She adds that Steingraber's book is "a must read" for all
health-conscious women who are pregnant or planning a family.

In her book, Steingraber issues a call to arms to mothers of the world
to protect their breast milk from chemical contaminants.

"There is no substitute for mother's milk," she says.  "Mothers and
feminists have to make this issue an international priority."

To date, Sweden has paid attention and the Swedish minister of the
environment has called for the European Union to ban all chemicals that
build up in human tissues - particularly in breast milk.

Copyright 1996-2003. Toronto Star Newspapers Limited. All rights
reserved

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