Bottle Fed Babies Need Us Too
posted by: Sandra
The phenomenal boob ninjas from the League of Maternal Justice rocked the blogosphere yesterday with the inspiring, empowering, incredible virtual breast fest. They sung out loud and proud about a woman's right to breast feed our babies in public and not be ashamed of it. They succeeded in gathering support and attention on blogs, You Tube and in the media. Congrats and applause to all those involved.
In BlogHers Act Canada's quest to ban Bisphenol A we are reminded that it isn't just nursing babies that need our help. For lots of reasons many babies aren't fed at the breast. Some mother's are unable to breastfeed. Some can but need to pump. Some babies are adopted. Others are bottle fed for a myriad of good reasons.
No one is telling those babies to stop eating in public, yet, they still need our voices and attention too.
They need our attention because of Bisphenol A. The harmful, hormone disruptor is commonly found in plastic baby bottles. Plastic baby bottles. We take great care to make sure the contents of those bottles are filled with the most nutritious option possible for our children. But then the vessels that contain them can leach harmful chemicals to add extra unwanted ingredients.
It is outrageous that Bisphenol A is not already banned in Canada and the US. Outrageous and infuriating.
So what can we do?
As a start, we can sign the petition to Ban Bisphenol A and tell everyone we know to do the same. We can also put up this fancy new button to the petition on our blogs and on our websites:
AND ... we can blog it in unison on Blog Action Day (October 15th).
But in the meantime, how can we protect our bottle fed babies?
Until Bisphenol A is banned, we can switch to glass bottles. Or we can look for safer plastic bottle options. The "safest" plastic bottles are reportedly made from high-density polyethylene (look for a number 2 in the recycling triangle symbol on the bottom). Other good options are low-density polyethylene (#4 in the recycling symbol) or polypropylene (#5 in the recycling symbol). Bisphenol A is highest in plastics with a #7 in the recycling symbol.
And studies have shown risk of leaching is significantly increased when you heat the milk or formula in a plastic container so being aware of that is powerful information.
Until a few months ago, I was completely in the dark about any of this. I hadn't heard of Bisphenol A. Bisphenol what? Chances are some of your readers are in the same boat that I was. We hope you'll join us to change that on Blog Action Day to spread the word. And we hope you'll post the button to encourage as many people as possible to sign the petition!
Bottlefed babies need us. Let's act!
I chose Avent bottles as what we would use when others fed Scooter pumped breastmilk. And so I was furious (with myself, with Avent) when I discovered that those are exactly the bottles that are the worst offenders. As far as I know, the company continues to stand by their use of polycarbonate. Argh!
Posted by: Mouse | October 11, 2007 at 06:51 PM
When I last read the avent website it was still standing by its use of polycarbonate.
Honestly on this issue it is like the universe is taunting me as I had to feed my child out of plastic bottles in the hosptial for three months and she still won't breastfeed and there is no way I can handle glass bottles right now as I keep dropping everything.
Now that I think of it Julia should be the poster girl for banning bisphenol-a.
With me in the background slamming my head against a wall.
Posted by: lisa b | October 13, 2007 at 01:28 PM
In case you haven't come across them yet, you can get stainless steel baby bottles (and bottles for adults too) from a Canadian source at www.yourwatermatters.com
Posted by: Mary Johnston | October 19, 2007 at 07:10 AM