Mommy Goes Green

If you haven’t dumped those old bottles you have laying around, now might be the time to consider it.  A study released from the Harvard School of Public Health found that participants who drank from polycarbonate bottles and baby bottles for ONE week showed a two-thirds increase (69%) in their urine of the chemical bisphenol A (BPA).  If these participants were only drinking from these bottles for one week, can you imagine what your baby is ingesting by using bottles for a year? 

Additionally, the participants only drank cold liquids from the bottles.  “We found that drinking cold liquids from polycarbonate bottles for just one week increased urinary BPA levels by more than two-thirds. If you heat those bottles, as is the case with baby bottles, we would expect the levels to be considerably higher. This would be of concern since infants may be particularly susceptible to BPA’s endocrine-disrupting potential,” said Karin B. Michels, associate professor of epidemiology at HSPH and Harvard Medical School and senior author of the study.

Exposure to BPA has been shown to interfere with reproductive development in animals and has been linked with cardiovascular disease and diabetes in humans.  Numerous studies have shown that it acts as an endocrine-disruptor in animals, including early onset of sexual maturation, altered development and tissue organization of the mammary gland and decreased sperm production in offspring. It may be most harmful in the stages of early development.

Bottom line – if you’re not positive that your bottles are BPA free, get new ones!