Watch out! Mama on the warpath!

Sophie la girafe toxique?!

I find myself on the warpath. Since I have become a mother, certain health issues suddenly seem more important. The more I learn about what I buy, ingest, and subject myself to, the more I want to protect my 11-month-old from. In researching and talking to people about how live a more healthy life, I find myself teetering between two poles. Either I have to give up on trying to avoid unhealthy chemicals, or I have to go live in the woods and eat stone soup like a total nut job. Or do I? Isn’t there a way to make certain healthy and important choices without everyone rolling their eyes at you?

I recently read an article on one of France’s leading newspaper sites lemonde.fr about how my daughter’s (and many other babies’) favorite teething toy “Sophie the Giraffe” had tested positive for potentially cancer causing nitrosamines that are illegal in baby bottles and pacifiers in Europe. This has of course caused a big debate about both journalism and marketing. Sophie is marketed as being one of the safest toys out there.

http://www.lemonde.fr/economie/article/2011/12/01/que-choisir-tord-le-cou-de-sophie-la-girafe_1611899_3234.html

Vulli, the company that has made Sophie the Giraffe for fifty years, quickly released a statement saying their toy was safe and another very reputable (if more right wing) French newspaper (Le Figaro) published the following article:

http://sante.lefigaro.fr/actualite/2011/12/02/16232-sophie-girafe-est-elle-toxique

Here’s the thing. I know that most plastics and chemicals are potentially dangerous. And I know that many of what is harmful occurs naturally, such as nitrosamines. However, I’m frustrated that it seems impossible to get a straight answer from any company when what is important is the bottom line. Saying Sophie the Giraffe may cause cancer is going to HURT SALES. And in this economy, that’s BAD. So a quick fix is to keep moms buying. I’m not the first person to say this, but aren’t our priorities a teensy bit skewed?

Whenever I bring up conversation topics about preventable health concerns I’m always met with the same response: there’s always something worse. Smoking is worse! Pollution is worse! We’re all going to die of cancer anyway. (These are all responses I’ve got to telling people about the potential danger of Sophie) It seems that people in general don’t take seriously what will potentially affect them in 20 or 30 years. This is understandable. I’ve smoked. I drink. I’ve bought vinyl shower curtains and plastic water bottles. I make choices that I know are bad for my body, and for the environment. So my question is, what choices can we focus on without drowning in scientific data that just makes us want to throw in the towel?

I was lucky to have grown up in one of the most beautiful and cleanest places on the planet: Bozeman, Montana. After-school outings included horseback riding, hikes, sledding, skiing. We ate organic produce from my mom’s garden all summer and drank and ate gallons of Macintosh apple cider and applesauce from our apple tree year round. After bouncing around the globe, I find myself settled in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania where life is not as pristine. And I love it here. I really, truly LOVE Pittsburgh. But I need to feel safe, and I need to feel that my daughter is not growing up ingesting preventable carcinogens.

I am a graduate student in French Literature at the University of Pittsburgh, so by speaking French, I have access to media that many other American parents do not. However, I feel that I need someone to trust here in the U.S. Is it the government’s role to prevent potential cancer in future generations? Or is it up to me to wade through thousands of contradictory scientific sources and wield my “power” as a consumer to only buy what I think is safest for my child? The sites I use like healthychild.org and healthystuff.org are great, as are the good people at Safer Chemicals Healthy Families that I follow on facebook. But let's do more!

In her book Bossypants, Tina Fey makes fun of the kind of mom who breastfeeds snobbishly and buys wooden toys (gasp). I’ll admit it, I’m that mom. But I’m also the mom who needs to juggle school, teaching, family, life, comfort, convenience, and health. And I think we need someone to trust who has our back. Not our back now. Our back 50 years from now.

Because, see, I don’t have the time. I’m too busy kissing my baby.