Green Your Baby - My 5 steps to a healthier baby

Several parents have asked me what they can do to keep their babies as healthy and green as possible.

My number one answer is always, "breastfeed".
Not only are giving your baby the healthiest possible start in life but by breastfeeding but you are saving thousands of dollars on formula, bottles and the likes.

The manufacturing of baby formula is energy intensive. The industrial processes release harmful greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Formula is packaged in tin cans - the majority of which are never recycled. Formula requires plastic bottles and nipples - which take anywhere between 200 to 450 years to breakdown.

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Additionally Since many cows in the U.S. are now routinely ingesting synthetic growth hormones to artificially increase their milk production, it stands to reason that these hormones are also getting into the U.S. formulas.

Click here for more information.



Make Organic Baby Food
This is actually quite simple. You don't need all the trays and fancy baby grinders unless you want them. All you need for little babies is a blender and for older babies - a fork.

To make organic brown rice cereal:
1. Cook your organic brown rice according to instructions.
2. Put it in a blender with a little breast milk.
3. When it's the right consistency - feed it to your baby. Easy Cheesy.

To make fruit and veggies
1. Boil the fruit and veggies
2. Blend or smash with a fork.
*Some fruits like bananas don't need to be boiled - just mash the heck out of them.

In my house we feed the babies whatever we are eating - just mashed up. No need to spend money on store bought brands that might have sneaky ingredients in them.

This is a good link for more information.



Use Healthy Sunscreen
Brands of sunscreen that you find in conventional stores typically are full of chemicals. There is no need to lather your baby in a chemical cocktail - here are several brands that are cleaner and safer:

*Badger All Natural Sunscreen

*Soleo Organics Sunscreen

*Kid Kare Biodegradable Sunscreen

And my personal favorite

*Alba Botanica Sunscreen - this is sunscreen made from green tea and my kids can wear it all day long in the pool without burning or needing re-application. Be forewarned - this is a THICK sunscreen.

Click here for a comprehensive guide to sunscreen.

Pay special attention to this "Hall of Shame" list of sunscreens.

I had to sneak a picture of my Doodle Bug in here :)

Cloth Diaper Your Baby
You knew I was going to say that, right? Since I talk about cloth diapers almost exclusively on this blog I'll be short and sweet. Protect your baby's tenderest parts, keep raw sewage out of our landfills and save literally thousands of dollars with cloth diapers. Of course I recommend LolliDoo Diapers :)



Last but not least - stay away from plastic toys, seats and the likes
You really don't need even a fraction of all the baby stuff in stores nowadays. Especially those plastic toys and bouncers. If you do buy them please pay attention to where they are made - things coming over from other countries are sometimes full of chemicals.

This is what I believe you need for a baby:
A sling and/or backpack (check out Sweet Pea Ring Slings)
Diapers
Clothes
Wooden toys
Organic blankets

That's it folks - all the other stuff is just gravy. Even cribs - how many babies do you know that actually sleep in a crib? I can count three - the rest sleep with their parents; where I believe they should be.

I am of the opinion that these five steps are easy, practical and safer for babies.

Formula is the last choice for feeding babies pt. 1

The WHO (World Health Organization) states that the most nutritious way to feed a baby is:
1. Breastfeeding
2. Pumped breastmilk
3. Using donor breastmilk
4. Formula

They have good reason to make formula a last resort. For starters, this was recently in the news.

According to FDA data for tests of 77 infant formula samples, a trace concentration of melamine was detected in one product — Mead Johnson's Infant Formula Powder, Enfamil LIPIL with Iron. An FDA spreadsheet shows two tests were conducted on the Enfamil, with readings of 0.137 and 0.14 parts per million.

Three tests of Nestle's Good Start Supreme Infant Formula with Iron detected an average of 0.247 parts per million of cyanuric acid, a melamine byproduct.

-FDA finds traces of melamine in US infant formula By MARTHA MENDOZA and JUSTIN PRITCHARD, Associated Press Writers

To read the whole article, go to http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081126/ap_on_he_me/infant_formula

Formula companies are marketing geniuses and they portray images of formula fed babies as healthy. While formula is not a prescription for poor health, it certainly has a lot of risks that I for one am not willing to take.

Lets look at some studies.

Formula feeding increases baby girls' risk of developing breast cancer in later life. Women who were formula-fed as infants have higher rates of breast cancer as adults. For both premenopausal and postmenopausal breast cancer, women who were breastfed as children, even if only for a short time, had a 25% lower risk of developing breast cancer than women who were bottle-fed as infants.

Freudenheim, J. et al. 1994 "Exposure to breast milk in infancy and the risk of breast cancer". Epidemiology 5:324-331

Breast cancer is so prevalent that I would not willing introduce anything into my daughter's bodies that may up the risk.

People have argued that formula doesn't increase the risk of diabetes, so here are several studies linking development of insulin dependant Type I diabetes (formerly referred to as "juvenile diabetes") to lack of breastfeeding. The results of a study from Finland suggest that the introduction of dairy products at an early age, and high milk consumption during childhood increase the level of cow's milk antibodies in the children's systems. This factor is associated with an increased risk of insulin dependent diabetes. Now a new study has indicated that breastfeeding in infancy may help reduce the risk of Type 2 diabetes. This sort of diabetes was formerly referred to as "adult onset" diabetes, but has been mysteriously occurring in more and more youngsters.

Young, T.K. et al. Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus in children. Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med 2002; 156(7): 651-55

Gerstein HC. "Cow's milk exposure and type 1 diabetes mellitus". Diabetes Care. 1994;17:13-19

Virtanen et al: "Diet, Cow's milk protein antibodies and the risk of IDDM in Finnish children." Childhood Diabetes in Finland Study Group. Diabetologia, Apr 1994, 37(4):381-7

Virtanen SM, Rasanen L, Aro A, et al. "Infant feeding in Finnish children <7 yr of age with newly diagnosed IDDM" Diabetes Care, 1991;14:415-417

Another big bad is that formula increases a baby's risk of SIDS. There are a number of studies showing a possible link between lack of breastfeeding and SIDS. A Swedish study has found that babies who were breastfed exclusively for less than 8 weeks had a 3 - 5 times greater risk of dying from SIDS than babies who were breastfed exclusively for four months

Horn, RS et al "Comparison of evoked arousability in breast and formula fed infants." 2004 Arch Dis Child.; 89(1):22-25

Alm et al, "Breastfeeding and the Sudden Infant Death Syndrome in Scandanavia." June 2002 Arch of Dis in Child. 86: 400-402.

McVea, KL et al "The role of breastfeeding in sudden infant death syndrome." J Hum Lact. 2000;16:13-20

Fredrickson, DD et al., "Relationship between Sudden Infant Death Syndrome and Breastfeeding Intensity and Duration." Am. Journal of Diseases in Children, 1993: 147:460

Ford RPK, et al ."Breastfeeding and the Risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome." International Journal of Diseases in Children, 1993, 22(5):885-890

Taylor BJ, Mitchell EA, et al. "Breastfeeding and the risk of sudden infant death syndrome. Int J. Epidemiol. 1993;22:885-890

Scragg LK, Mitchell EA, Tonkin SL, et al. "Evaluation of the cot death prevention programme in South Auckland." NZ Med J. 1993;106:8-10

I know that this post is very footnote heavy, but I think it's important to back up what I am saying.

Formula fed babies have a higher risk of developing certain childhood cancers. In a study done by researchers at the University of Minnesota it was found that babies who were breast fed for at least one month had a 21% less chance of getting leukemia than formula fed babies. The risk was 30% for children breast fed for 6 months.

Shu X-O, et al. "Breastfeeding and the risk of childhood acute leukemia". J Natl Cancer Inst 1999; 91: 1765-72

The choice is clear to me, I would never choose formula. Mother's that do choose formula for convienence, say they don't want their boobs to sag (a myth by the way, boobs sag due to heredity not breastfeeding), need to educate themselves. It saddens me that in this day and age formula is still commonplace.

I leave you with my favorite quote.

When we trust the makers of baby formula more than we do our own ability to nourish our babies, we lose a chance to claim an aspect of our power as women. Thinking that baby formula is as good as breast milk is believing that thirty years of technology is superior to three million years of nature's evolution. Countless women have regained trust in their bodies through nursing their children, even if they weren't sure at first that they could do it. It is an act of female power, and I think of it as feminism in its purest form. ----- Christine Northrup M.D.

Stay tuned for part two of my formula rant.

Kid -Tested, Mother-Approved...not this mother!

Cherie, my Sister in law, brought my nephew over this morning as she does every weekday morning around 6:30am. This morning she woke me up telling me that she brought a healthy cereal for the kids.

OK

Knowing Cherie it wasn't. So I looked. Kix. Ya.

Really she was trying to do something nice, I know that.

I asked her if she read the label and of course she hadn't. The power of advertising is strong. I think I need to coin a term for false healthy food advertising. Something like greenwashing.

Anyway, Cherie did read the claims on the box that say, "Grow up strong with Big G kid cereals" and "good source of calcium and Vitamin D". What she didn't read was that the 4th ingredient in the cereal is sugar. (She thinks I am ridiculous by the way because I won't let my kids have soda or Hawaiian Punch).

Sugar in the morning has all kinds of ill side effects. According to Dr. Mercola, Sugar can suppress your immune system and impair your defenses against infectious disease. Sugar upsets the mineral relationships in your body: causes chromium and copper deficiencies and interferes with absorption of calcium and magnesium. Sugar can reduce the learning capacity, adversely affect school children's grades and cause learning disorders. For a full listing go to http://www.mercola.com/article/sugar/dangers_of_sugar.htm.

The point is that Cherie is like so many consumers who believe the advertising. How many people actually read labels with knowledge?

I know that Sugar has been implicated in upsets to the calcium/phosphorus balance.
I know this because I spend time asking our naturapath educated questions about my children's diets and reading research on nutrition.

Don't get me started on the 210mg of sodium in each serving.

Yes, the box listed a table of vitamins that they pumped into the cereal. However, the sugar is going to effect the absorption of those vitamins.

I am not the food police, my kids get there share of Del Taco and cookies. What I am not ok with is the fallacy that we are feeding our kids healthy food when we aren't. I wish more people would take some time to educate themselves about nutrition, artificial ingredients and chemicals in food.

I also think that manufacturers should take more responsibility. Sugar cereals are directly marketed to our kids and they have very little if any nutritional value.



Time to get off my soapbox.

Happy, optimistic Ali can come back out to play.