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 Members Only > Group Members > Protecting Baby's First Food
Protecting Baby's First Food
Breast milk is a natural and superior food for our newborn children. It contains ideal proportions of all the nutrients necessary for optimal growth and development, as well as a mother's natural immunities which help infants fight infections. The many benefits of nursing, including psychological benefits for mother and child (1), have been well documented (2, 3). Studies show that other benefits of breastfeeding include small increases over formula-fed children in measures of intelligence and academic achievement (4, 5), higher developmental scores at 18 months, and higher IQs at 7.5 years (6).
There is widespread support for breastfeeding from many government agencies and physicians' organizations. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the U.S. Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) both actively promote and support breastfeeding (7, 8). The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends that all children be fed exclusively on breast milk from birth to 4 to 6 months of age (9).
Although there are many benefits to nursing, there is a disturbing fact about this perfect food. Around the world, people are exposed to chemicals like dioxin, DDT, and PCBs that accumulate in our bodies. This exposure comes mainly from the food we eat, especially meat, fish, and dairy products, which are contaminated from industrial discharges. These chemicals in our food do not always come from local industries or pesticides applied near our food. They can travel thousands of miles in the air before entering the animal whose milk or meat we eat. The contamination of people's fat, blood, livers, and breast milk by industrial chemicals like DDT, PCBs, and dioxin has been documented in 160 studies in 61 countries. Our wombs - our children's first environment - are contaminated as well.
Children's exposure to these chemicals starts before birth and continues as they breast feed. The chart shows the average dioxin levels in breast milk in 32 countries. The levels range from a low of 3.0 pg TEQ/g fat (or parts per trillion) in Thailand and Cambodia to a high of 45 pg TEQ/g fat in Jordan.
To give you some idea what these numbers mean, the chart also shows the legal limits for dioxin in cow's milk in Belgium, France, and the Netherlands. The limits in these countries range from 3 to 6 pg TEQ/g fat. This illustrates that dioxin levels in breast milk in most countries exceed these three countries' allowable limits, meaning breast milk is too contaminated to be legally sold there as a food. This is a powerful indication of the extent and seriousness of the contamination of breast milk worldwide.
Breast milk around the world is also contaminated with PCBs, chemicals used mostly as a coolant in electrical transformers and capacitors, and by many pesticides including DDT, toxaphene, mirex, hexachlorobenzene, chlordane, heptachlor, aldrin, dieldrin, and endrin. These chemicals are generally referred to as persistent organic pollutants (POPS) and are currently the subject of international negotiations to develop a treaty which would eliminate their use and distribution; destroy stockpiles in different countries; and clean up areas contaminated by these chemicals.
Exposure to these persistent chemicals can lead to cancer, nervous system disorders, developmental and reproductive problems, suppression of the immune system, long term liver damage, and alterations in hormone levels, among other health effects (10).
The contamination of breast milk with these chemicals understandably leads to concern about breastfeeding. But avoiding breastfeeding is not the answer. After considering the issue, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, and the World Health Organization concluded that mothers should not stop nursing their infants. Numerous studies have found that the overall benefits of breastfeeding outweigh potentially negative effects of exposure to ordinary levels of chemicals in breast milk (11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16).
It is an outrage that breast milk is contaminated by dioxins, PCBs, and other industrial chemicals. And equally outrageous is the fact that these chemicals also get passed on to babies in the womb. But finding these chemicals in breast milk and in the womb is really just an indication of a bigger problem — the worldwide contamination of people by corporate polluters.
So how do we say what we know about the contamination of all of our bodies in a way that leads people to action rather than depression or denial? How do we use the contamination of breast milk as an organizing issue without scaring people away from breastfeeding?
We must be careful to avoid two specific pitfalls when we talk about breast milk contamination. First, if people get information on breast milk contamination and mistakenly conclude that breast milk is the only source of chemical contamination of children, we have failed to accurately inform them and will probably fail to mobilize them to join efforts to stop sources of these pollutants.
Second, if the message focuses on the tragedy of breast milk contamination without providing reasonable action steps to address this problem, people may ignore what we say about how we can stop the sources of this pollution. Or, in an attempt to figure out what they can do about the problem and in lieu of another solution, people may decide that the problem is the contaminated breast milk itself, rather than the polluters who are contaminating it.
The contamination of breast milk can be a powerful organizing issue. But for this to happen, we must educate people without leaving the impression that the solution is formula feeding. The way to do that is to defend breastfeeding and to provide hope in the form of personal or collective actions for people to take.
What Can We Do About Contaminated Breast Milk?
There are some things we can do as individuals to limit the contamination of our children during pregnancy and breastfeeding. But we can't solve these problems without organizing to eliminate this chemical trespass into our bodies and our children. Several personal actions for families who are breastfeeding or considering breastfeeding are described below:
- First, don't blame yourself. You did not give the chemical companies permission to contaminate you or your child
- Eat low on the food chain - limit the amount of animal fat in your diet.
- Don't eat fish or shellfish from bodies of water that are known to be polluted.
- Avoid extreme weight loss (dioxin and other chemicals stored in your body fatwill be released).
- Stay away from tobacco, alcohol, pesticides, herbicides and other toxic substances.
- Recognize that the longer you breastfeed (and the more children you breastfeed), the lower the levels of toxins in your milk.
- Pump your breasts in between feedings to lower your overall body burden of chemicals stored in fat.
- Don't agonize, organize!
Some actions to consider in the collective efforts to reduce the contamination of breast milk:
- Create campaigns that defend the right of all children to be born free of toxic chemicals and to not have their first food add to their level of contamination.
- Create campaigns that defend the right of all mothers to breast feed their children free of the fear of toxic contamination of their milk.
- Use information on breast milk contamination to drive home the extent of human contamination by toxic chemicals like DDT, PCBs, and dioxin, always making it clear that breast milk simply serves an example of the contamination that exists in all of us.
- Understand and teach that this problem is not just about breast milk. Children's exposure starts before birth. Contaminated breast milk adds to the toxic burden children are already born with.
Take actions in your own community to eliminate the production, use and stockpiles of toxic chemicals. Every incinerator that is not built or is shut down, every paper mill that converts to chlorine-free technology, and every PCB-contaminated harbor that is properly cleaned up, will in time make all of us a little less contaminated. Even small actions, like buying chlorine-free paper products and alternatives to polyvinyl chloride (PVC) shower curtains, gloves, raincoats and containers can help.
In conclusion, breast milk is the perfect food for infants and mothers should continue to breastfeed their children. Our emphasis should be on limiting the amount of contamination in the food women (and men and children) eat, rather than on restricting breastfeeding. It is an outrage not only that breast milk has become contaminated, but that there are toxic chemicals in the bodies of men, women, and children all over the world. The solution to this problem is to identify the sources of these chemical exposures and go after the companies whose chemicals are invading our bodies.
References
1. La Leche League International (1994) Board Report, Leaven, May-June.
2. Jelliffee, D.B. and Jelliffee, P.E. (eds.) (1988) Programs to Promote Breast Feeding. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
3. Lawrence, R.A. (1994) Breast Feeding: A Guide for the Medical Professional. New York: Mosby Yearbook, Inc.
4. Horwood, L.J. and Fergusson, D.M. (1998) "Breastfeeding and later cognitive and academic outcomes." Journal of Pediatrics 101 (1): E9.
5. Fergusson, D.M., Beautrais, A.L., and Silva, P.A. (1982) "Breast-feeding and cognitive development in the first seven years of life." Social Science and Medicine 16 (19): 1705-1708.
6. Lucas, A., Morley, R., Cole, T.J., Lister, G., and Leeson-Payne, C. (1992) "Breast milk and subsequent intelligence quotients in children born preterm." Lancet 339: 261-264.
7. American Academy of Pediatrics (1999) Handbook of Pediatric Environmental Health,Committee on Environmental Health, AAP, Ruth A. Etzel and Sophie J. Balk, (eds.), Elk Grove Village, IL.
8. Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (1998) Toxicity Profile for Chlorinated Dibenzo-p-Dioxins (update), U.S. Department of Health and Humans Services, Public Health Service, December.
9. World Health Organization (1998) "Assessment of the health risks of dioxins: re-evaluation of the Tolerable Daily Intake (TDI)." Executive Summary. Final Draft. WHO Consultation of May 25-29, 1998, Geneva, WHO European Centre for Environment and Health, International Programme on Chemical Safety, December.
10. Physicians for Social Responsibility (1999) "Health Effects of the Short List: Empirical Findings." Chart prepared by PSR and published in PSR Monitor, November, 1999.
11. Gordon, N. (1997) "Nutrition and cognitive development." Brain and Development 19: 165- 170.
12. Huisman, M., Koopman-Esseboom, C., Lanting, C.I., Van der Paauw, C.G., Tuinstra, L.G., Fidler, V., Weisglas-Kuperus, N., Sauer, P.J., Boersma, E.R., and Touwen, B.C. (1995) "Neurological condition in 18-month-old children perinatally exposed to polychlorinated biphenyls and dioxins." Early Human Development 43: 165-176.
13. Koopman-Esseboom, C., Weisglas-Kuperus, N., de Ridder, M.A., Van der Paauw, C.G., Tuinstra, L. G., and Sauer, P.J. (1996) "Effects of polychlorinated biphenyl/dioxin exposure and feeding type on infants' mental and psychomotor development." Pediatrics 97 (5): 700-706.
14. Lanting, C.I., Patandin, S., Weisglas-Kuperus, N., Touwen, B.L.C., and Boersma, E.R (1998) "Breast-feeding and neurological outcome at 42 months." Acta Pediatrica 87: 1224-1229.
15. Lanting, C.I., Fidler, V., Huisman, M., Touwen, B.C.L., and Boersma, E.R. (1994) "Neurological differences between 9-year-old children fed breast-milk or formula-fed as babies." Lancet 344 (8933): 1319-1322.
16. Rogan, W.J., Blanton, P.J., Portier, C.J., and Stallard, E. (1991) "Should the presence of carcinogens in breast milk discourage breast feeding?" Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology 13 (3): 228-240, June.
Chart source: International Agency for Research on Cancer (1997) IARC Monographs on the Evaluation of Carcinogenic Risks to Humans. Volume 69: Polychlorinated Dibenzo-para-Dioxins and Polychlorinated Dibenzofurans, Lyon, France, February 2000
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