The other day, I heard a report on CNN recommending that pregnant women limit the use of cell phones. I was in the middle of the morning rush, so I didn’t catch it all and decided to do some research later. The recommendation is based on a study in the US and Denmark on cell phone use and pregnancy. The study was conducted at UCLA in California and at Aarhus in Denmark. This was a large study, looking at nearly 14,000 mothers of children born in the 1990s. The mothers were questioned about their use of cell phones during pregnancy. … Continue reading →

If you are pregnant, you may be concerned about cleaning products. There is good reason for worry since cleaning products we use every day contain a wide variety of chemicals with unknown side effects. A recent study in the UK suggests heavy use of cleaning products during pregnancy can increase the unborn baby’s risk of developing asthma. The study looked at the link between childhood asthma and cleaning product use in pregnancy, particularly bleach and spray air fresheners. The study found that babies of mothers who frequently used bleach and air fresheners during pregnancy had a 41 percent higher risk … Continue reading →

By now, most of us have heard of PCBs. Polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, are man made chemicals. The chemicals were widely used in industry for decades. In 1976, the federal government in the US banned the production of the chemicals. However, there is still significant contamination of PCBs in the environment. This is largely due to contamination resulting from improper disposal of the chemicals. PCBs have been found in newborn babies and breastmilk, over thirty years after the chemicals were banned. One of the problems with PCBs is they are not soluble in water. This results in a process known … Continue reading →