Child Safety Blog

Senate Consumer Affairs subcomittee members sharply critized federal agencies for a slow reaction to the problem of bisphenol A (BPA) in baby bottles and water bottles and other plastic drinking containers. As the linked blog post and article both describe, the National Institutes of Health found cause for "some concern" that BPA has a harmful effect on very young children.

The Food and Drug Administration does not recommend that consumers immediately cease using products with BPA. Some Senators, however, are pushing for legislation that would ban BPA in products intended to be used by children aged 7 or younger.

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Previously, we blogged about a link between bisphenol A and problems in human development. As the article says, the advisory panel to the National Toxicology Program (part of the NIH) had previously dismissed all concerns about this as "minimal." This new report concludes that there is reason for "some concern." Bisphenol A can cause problems for fetuses, babies, and young children, but apparently not for adult humans.

Plastic industry representatives argued that there are no "serious or high-level concerns", and the National Toxicology Program concedes that more research is needed.

Nevertheless, the bottle maker Nalgene Outdoor Products has decided to stop using plastic containing bisphenol A . This may have something to do with the new report, and may also be related to Canada's plans to declare bisphenol A toxic. In any case, hopefully more studies will be done to determine how much of a threat this is to young children.

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Given the frequent confusion over what drugs and foods are and are not dangerous to breastfeeding infants, mothers will be relieved to kow that breast-feeding while on seizure medications does not have any apparent harmful effects on children. From the article:

"Our early findings show breast-feeding during anti-epilepsy drug treatment doesn't appear to have a negative impact on a child's cognitive abilities," study author Kimford Meador, of the University of Florida at Gainesville, said in a prepared statement. "However, more research is needed to confirm our findings, and women should use caution due to the limitations of our study."

The study will follow up on these children until they reach the age of six.

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Black infants are twice as likely to die as white infants and have a much higher-than-average rate of pre-term birth.

Researchers have suggested many possible causes for this, including the following:

-lack of pre-natal care

-lack of health insurance and health care generally

-physiological impact of the chronic stress of racism

This statistic is just one of many that indicates a highly disturbing healthcare apartheid for children in America.

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Posted In: Infants

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