Toxic Baby Bottles?

Don't worry, I was that paranoid too. I actually had a post on here about this very issue about 5 months ago. :) Scary isn't it?

I found this website to be very helpful for sorting through all of the dangers of plastics:
www.lifewithoutplastics.com
If you click on "Facts on Plastics" it has very detailed information, including a section on baby bottles, and a link to a chart with info about each type of plastic.
Like you, I am confused as to why more hasn't been done about this issue. I think that fact that we're seeing more and more hormonal problems at younger ages is a evidence that the introduction of plastics with hormone disrubpting chemicals and hormones to our food have have serious consequences. My Mother developed tyroid cancer in her 50s and now my cousin and my sister are showing early signs of it in their 20s! Hope this helps!

Because "linked" doesn't mean there is any scientific evidence that it actually causes problems. Things are linked all the time and found later to have no correlation at all. This is one of the newest. They have found that the chemical is harmful but it doesn't get into liquids unless the bottle is damaged. The same goes for buying water/juice/pop in plastic bottles instead of glass. As long as you don't squeeze your bottle over and over to make the liquid come out faster, it's fine. You are better off getting non-sports bottles that don't have a sports cap so that you aren't sqeezing or sucking on it and making the bottle depress. You can't really squeeze baby bottles anyhow, but the answer for babies (as always) is breast feed until they are ready for a sippy cup!
Hope that helps:)

I heard about this at least a year ago, but from what I gathered, the problem is with washing those bottles in a dishwasher. The very high temperature of the water causes the chemical to be "released" and that poses a potential problem. My son was only on a bottle for a year and half, and the last part of it was only at night for bedtime. I don't think that kids are on bottles for a long-enough period of time for exposure to cause anything.

If your very worried about it, switch to glass bottles.

Hi A.,

I remember going through this before the birth of my son a couple of years ago. I totally freaked and looked everywhere for glass bottles. There's only one type on the market and they're hard to find. So, I went back and did a little more research and found an overwhelming number of studies discounting the impact of bispehnol coming off bottles when the directions are followed.

The problem occures when parents boil the water in the bottles and then use that same water to mix the formula. You'd have to boil the bottle for a half hour to get a measurable amount of bisphenol but of course no one does that. I did catch a friend mixing formula in the bottles and then placing them on the bottom of a sauce pan of water to heat them up. I showed her a new way of doing it.

I microwave a large ceramic mug for about 3 minutes and then place the bottle in it for 2 minutes and then shake it up. It doesn't overheat the bottles so bispehnols can't escape the plastic.

Bisphenols can also be found in perfume and hairspray which are more easily absorbed in the skin. I don't use either. Toxins are a serious concern of mine and I am careful about what I put on my family's skin. Check out this website:

http://www.ewg.org/reports/skindeep

E.

Don't believe everything you read on the internet. You'll go crazy if you do. Many environmental organizations make such statements saying they used independent labs but then when you ask for the results they cannot produce them.

actually it has been on the news quite a bit...but i cant tell you why they are still being sold but from what i understand the chance of anything happening are very minimal

I've heard about it, sadly. Here's a link with helpful info about choosing "safe" plastic bottles.

My last two babies didn't get bottles because now that I'm a SAHM I don't bother with pumping. ;)

I remember hearing about this when I was pregnant with my yuner son, who is now almost 5 years old. There have been many studies done, and every now and then it pops back up in the media. The bottom line is that, yes, some studies show that Bisphenol A is linked to various health problems.

But that's a simplification. For a start, "linked" is not the same as "causes" -- there's no medical proof that Bisphenol A causes these things, but statistical studies show a slightly higher incidence of problems among populations with a higher exposure to it. It's a statistical relationship, not a hard and fast medical relationship. It could be that relatively high levels of Bisphenol A (eg. ingesting 20 micrograms per day as opposed to 5 micrograms) is in itself harmless, but high exposure to one industrial compound generally goes along with high exposure to many other industrial compounds, and maybe one of the other chemicals is the culprit.

Now, at very high levels of exposure (eg. thousands of milligrams per day, as opposed to the range of about 5-25 micrograms seen human populations) Bisphenol A is indeed very toxic to laboratory animals. Keep in mind that very large amounts of anything is likely to be toxic. Vitamin A is toxic at high levels, even water is toxic if you drink anough of it. Toxicity at high levels does not mean toxicity at low levels.

You can be exposed to Bisphenol A via loads of different products. In the case of baby bottles, we're talking about bottles made from polycarbonate plastic, with Bisphenol A leaching into the milk. Many things are made of polycarbonate, including microwaveable food containers, water bottles, eye-glasses, CD cases, swim goggles, filtered water dispensers -- if it's a hard, transparent plastic, then it's probably polycarbonate.

While there may be a risk, but there's no scientific certainty about it. That said, I stopped using food and drink containers made of polycarbonate when I heard about this. It's easy to avoid, and I'd rather be safe than sorry.

Bad parenting has been linked to obesity (not bothering to make healthy choices), cancer (smoking around children),and Diabetes (letting children gorge on really unhealthy foods can cause diabetes), I dont really see any of those people being "taken off the shelves." I agree with previous posters- it has been linked- I have a whole website that links water to any of those common problems.

And pretty much anything on the internet is taken with a grain of salt unless it is from a reputable source- and parentdish is not reputable by far.

I was reading about this recently also, but after a bunch of research I found that the drop in liners are made from a different (and alot safer) type of plastic. Here is a link to a page that tells the different "numbers" of plastic (the little recycling sign in the bottem.. diff numbers in the middle is diff plastic..) and it has a section for baby stuff.. The Bisphenol A is in plastic number 7's. This shows there are a few kinds of bottles that arn't super expensive that are still safe.. Hope this helps.

http://www.checnet.org/healtheHouse/pdf/plasticchart.pdf

I have always used Playtex, Gerber and Evenflo plastic bottles with all of my kids between breast feedings. The oldest is 18. None of them have cancer, none of them are over weight or under weight, none of them have diabetes. They are all very healthy kids...with the exception of athsma (it runs on my mother's side of the family) and ADHD (only half of them have it and that also runs on my mother's side of the family). My mother has had just about every one of her female parts infested with cancer, but back in her day they used glass bottles not plastic. I also lost a grandfather to cancer as well, but once again they used glass bottles back then. The fact is...I don't believe they know what causes cancer. There was a point when they said that milk causes cancer and another time they claimed that carrots cause cancer. They say wine is good for the heart but alcohol is bad for the liver...there's alcohol in wine for god sake. Smoking causes cancer but my grandmother who died in her late 80's was a chain smoker as in she used one to light the other, she died of kidney failure. I would think that if it was that serious of a problem, then they would recall all of those bottles and eliminate the chemical that was the problem. And if you think that chemical is bad...you should take a guess at all the toxic chemicals in the air that we breath.

I just read this article about it. It states that the actual amount of Bisphenol A is extremely miniscule even after high heat for more than 30 minutes... http://www.bisphenol-a.org/human/polyplastics.html

I'd like to trust the studies I read, but I know there are always more studies that debunk studies. I haven't found any more info about the current studies other than what I posted above and what you linked to on Parentdish. For now, I'll go with the study and try to read up more if I can find it. Hope this helps.

I think it is probably being taken out of proportion. I used Playtex and Evenflo on my daughter, with breastmilk and formula....and she is perfectly happy. If this chemical used to make bottles is so harmful, they never would have passed the inspection stage.

Because then people freak out over something us mothers have been doing for YEARS. They don't take them off the shelf because there isn't anything wrong with them...My son used Playtex bottles and is fine. My nephew used Evenflo bottles and lo and behold, he's fine too. Add about 10 more neices and nephews to that, you have a whole gaggle of children who are growing quite nicely that were all bottle fed. From bottles that most certainly had Bisphenol A in the platic...amongst other things I'm sure.

When our parents were kids, there were no such things as car seats; you either got held by mom or strapped down in the back seat with all the other kids. My granny's 11 kids are proof you can't hold them all at the same time. Yet at the time, that "future generation" made it along swimmingly.(for proof please see the current population of baby boomers)

What do you think your licking when you lick the glue on an envelope? What about all the pesticides they spray fruit and veggies with? What about all the hormones they inject into cattle and chickens to get them fatter and tastier? Don't you think that may lend itself to cancer? I sure do. Screw the bottles...I'm worried about what I'm putting in my body every day, and my son's body!!

I'm also worried about the ozone layer and the depletion thereof, I'm worried about the greenhouse effect, I'm worried about the US not being part of the Kyoto Protocol. Hey I'm even worried about what they do to elephants at the circus thanks to PETA the last time I was there, but I'm NOT worried about the bottles. Take your passion for this, and put it towards something really significant, like saving the rainforest or some kind of species that's endangered, because this isn't it.