more info on choosing a safe sunscreen/sunblock for children: UVA, UVB, what does it mean?

After my post on sunscreen the other day, I kept feeling like there had to be more to know so I kept poking around. Here's what I found:

• Katja at Skimbaco has a very helpful post up expressing her concerns about the ingredients in many sunscreens, a review of the various formulations, and some specifics on good sunscreens to choose...including some that are very reasonably priced. The Baby Blanket brand sounds almost too good to be true--pretty good choice of ingredients, waterproof, SPF 50, and at $12/9 oz it seems like a bargain. Baby Blanket also makes a number of other products such as a 'scalp spray' for bald babies and a lotion spray for legs and backs. I had kind of settled on the Aveeno Baby lotion for the big kids and California Baby brand for our infant, but I think that this would be a better all around choice. Anyway...
• The Skin Deep Cosmetics Database that I mentioned last time has a full listing of all the active ingredients in sunscreens, what their efficacy at blocking UVA and UVB rays is, what the potential harm in them is, and how bad it is for you (rated 1-10, very simple to follow). I won't even go over a few of the common ones since the information they provide is so complete and succinct.
  
• Safe Mama has created another handy cheat sheet distilling all this information into a handy list of good and bad choices in sunscreens. Print it out, shop with it, and feel like a good parent. They have a whole selection of other info sheets covering bath products, skin care, and sippy cups if you're interested.
  

Also, following the terminology can be a little tough, so here are a few terms to know:

• SPF: Sun Protection Factor. A measure of how effectively the sunscreen blocks the sun's UVB rays. It's calculated by comparing the amount of time needed to produce a sunburn on protected skin to the amount of time needed to cause a sunburn on unprotected skin.
  
• UVB: Short-wave part of the spectrum of sunlight; more potent than UVA in causing sunburn, thought to be the main cause of basal and squamous cell skin cancers as well as a contributor to melanomas.
  
• UVA: Long-wave solar rays. Less likely than UVB to cause sunburn, but penetrates the skin more deeply; considered chief cause of wrinkling and "photoaging." Apparently increases UVB's cancer-causing effects, but may be main culprit of melanomas. Not blocked by all sunscreens, so check the label!!
• Sunscreen: Chemically absorbs UV rays.
  
• Sunblock: Physically deflects UV rays.
• "Broad-spectrum Protection": This indicates that a product protects against UVA and UVB, but doesn't guarantee coverage against all UVA wavelengths. Sunscreens containing avobenzone, zinc oxide, or titanium dioxide should be effective against entire UVA spectrum.

choosing a sunscreen that's safe and effective

Last summer I stocked up on tons of sunscreen. Living in Colorado we're at about a mile's elevation (that much closer to the sun!) and it can be brutal, especially for someone as fair-skinned as our oldest daughter. With everything else we were concerned about I was pretty worried that we were coating our children with something several times a day and felt that since I was bothering to buy organic produce I should really be similarly concerned about the safety of our sunblock.
Ideally, a sunscreen would be block both UVA and UVB rays (UVA causes invisible damage while UVB causes the red burn that you see), contain ingredients that don't break down in the sun (since once the active ingredients break down you're at risk for sunburn), and all ingredients would be proven safe for both adults and children. After looking a bit, I found no sunscreen that met all of these criteria. Big surprise. In the end, I had to prioritize, so I made a list of what was really important to me.

Here were my requirements:

• easy to apply, preferably a lotion/cream for faces and a spray for the rest of their body so that I could reapply often, even if the kids were busy
• SPF 30 or better
  
• something non-stinging since it inevitably finds its way into their eyes
• a water-resistant formulation since we spend a lot of time in the sprinkler
  
• something that didn't contain really concerning ingredients
  
• reasonably priced, since we need to buy it by the gallon
  

Sounds easy, eh? It actually wasn't too bad once I found the right resources. The Cosmetics Database provides a list of children's sunblocks with separate ratings for effectiveness at preventing sunburn as well as safety of ingredients. Since I just didn't have the energy to remember that MEXORYL SX degrades quickly or that OCTINOXATE may have estrogenic effects...let alone to consider how various combinations may be better or worse, I appreciated their simple color-coded guide to product safety. Referring to their list, many of their recommended choices met my requirements but were still really expensive. Since I need to use about 1/2 oz per child per application to get the recommended whitish coating (and I'd bet on at least 2 applications per child on an average day) I was looking at about 20 oz per week through the summer. The Cosmetics Database's top choice was Badger, but at $14/2.9 oz (at REI) I didn't even want to do the math. We'd go through that in a day.

In the end, I simply couldn't afford to spend a few hundred bucks on sunblock for the summer, so chose one lotion for the big kids (it got a green rating overall in spite of having some questionable ingredients) and and a more expensive one for our infant since she (a) doesn't use much and (b) is tiny and seems particularly susceptible. I skipped the spray since there was no reasonably priced choice that was also sufficiently safe. Hopefully that will change by next summer.

Finally, while I was looking through their database I checked into the safety of the sunblocks I already had on the shelf. I was surprised to find that the Neutrogena I had bought for myself didn't stand up to the SPF rating on the bottle--explaining why I got a light sunburn (and extra freckles!) on my face a couple of times last summer. If nothing else, you might want to check into the actual efficacy of the sunblocks that you already own to avoid a surprise sunburn.


*Also, don't forget to rate this post using the stars at the bottom of the post...I'm basically interested in knowing whether this is content you liked or didn't like. Thank you so much!

Surprising sources of BPA, phthalates, and PVC in your house (it's there!)

After a bit of looking over the weekend we realized that although the liquid-holding body of our sippy cups were phthalate and Bisphenol-A (BPA)-free, the lids weren't. Further, our daughter's pacifiers have BPA in the shield that holds the nipple and that...basically everything in our house has something bad in it. After throwing out the cups and switching pacifiers (we're going with the Evenflo Mimi since the nipple shape seems a lot like our standard MAMs), we're still left wondering what else is lurking. Here are some of the surprising sources we found in our trip around the internet:

• Food cans are lined with an epoxy resin coating that almost always contains BPA. This is particularly concerning with acidic foods such as tomatoes, and for liquid baby formula (since BPA has been found to leach out into fatty substances in higher concentrations). Eden Foods is the only company that I know of (or could find) that has removed this from their packaging (for beans, at least, not for tomatoes).
  
• Rubbermaid has an area on their site devoted to helping you determine whether Rubbermaid products you already own are a source of BPA. For other kitchen items, you can check out the cheat sheet for safe(r) plastic containers, and Z Recommends has a super-comprehensive listing of what baby feeding products to avoid.
• Nearly all baby mattresses are wrapped in PVC. PVC is generally considered to be one of the most toxic and environmentally damaging plastics in use and off-gasses nasty stuff into the air (it's what makes new cars smell like, well, like new cars). Additionally, they're filled with urethane foam, which releases nasties like benzene, and coated with a fire retardant containing things like antimony and arsenic. You can get around this by purchasing a cotton, wool, or natural latex mattress.
  
• Tooth-colored composite fillings often contain BPA--some are composed of up to 90% BPA.
• Some plastic wraps contain phthalates. These are mainly commercial grade wraps; Saran Wrap, Glad Cling Wrap, and Diamant Food Wrap (Diamant is made of cornstarch and compostable) definitely do not. Also, some plastic cutting boards contain BPA or phthalates.
  
• Two of the baby teethers that we owned contained phthalates. We also have a number of rubber duckies (which our oldest daughter used to carry in her mouth as she crawled around the house); some rubber ducks have been found to contain very high levels of DEHA, a particularly nasty phthalate. Safe Mama has a guide to figuring out whether the teethers and pacifiers you're offering may contain BPA or phthalates and for choosing safe(r) options.
  
• Many personal care products contain phthalates (patently bad) and parabens (jury's still out on actual badness), including baby washes, lotions, and cosmetics. Safe Mama offers a cheat sheet for this too. To generally stay away from phthalates altogether, here is a guide to other products to avoid.
• Sunscreen often contains parabens and phthalates, as well as formaldehyde, and some potentially estrogenic compounds such as benzophenone, homosalate, and octyl-methoxycinnamate/octinoxate. Considering the relative amount of surface area on a baby, you can expect that their exposure to these chemicals by weight will be much higher. Cosmetics Database has a super-comprehensive list of sunscreens to buy, what to avoid, and best of all (for us living up in the mountains, that much closer to the sun) a listing of how accurate the SPF rating on the bottle is.
  

Now that I've totally freaked you out, I personally think that this should all be taken with a grain of salt. I cook with lots of canned foods (especially tomatoes), all of my children have slept on PVC-wrapped, flame-retardant, urethane foam mattresses, and my mouth is full of pretty white fillings. There's not much I can do about some of this (let alone our general exposure to environmental toxins), but I think that it would be easy to make some simple changes that would work with our lifestyle.

More from the collective:

• The basics: what are PVC, phthalates, BPA, dioxins, and parabens?
• Safe teething toys
• Choosing safe playthings
• So which plastics are safe?
  

The basics: What are PVC, BPA, phthalates, and dioxins?

We keep reading about how bad the stuff in our house is, but I'm still confused about what it all is and why I should be worried about it. So here is the Cliff's Notes version:

• Bisphenol-A (BPA) is a component in plastics (mainly polycarbonate [recycling #7], which is clear and shatter-resistant) and the epoxy linings of food cans. There are two camps on the safety of BPA. The American Plastics Council maintains that the potential human exposure to BPA is extremely low and poses no known risk to human health. On the other side are groups maintaining that the APC is basing their recommendation on outdated research and that over 100 newer studies are showing adverse effects of BPA exposure in animal models, suggesting that it does have a biological effect. Structurally BPA is very similar to naturally occurring estrogen and there is evidence that it disrupts endocrine function in the body and it has been linked to low sperm count, hyperactivity, early puberty, obesity, small testes size, and enlarged prostates.
• Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC; recycling #3) is used in a great many products. From construction materials such as sprinkler pipe and vinyl siding to credit cards and music records nearly all of us come into contact with it on a daily basis. It can be made softer with the addition of phthalates, making it useful in the manufacture of clothing, vinyl toys, and flexible hoses such as those used in medical applications.
  
• Phthalates are used as plastic softeners, oily substances in perfumes, additives to hairsprays, lubricants, cosmetics, and wood finishers. One of these, DEHP (diethylhexyl phthalate), has been banned in the European Union out of concern for children's safety. Health concerns surrounding PVC are related to both contact exposure (e.g. children mouthing toys) and offgassing (e.g. compounds released into the air--see 'new car smell'). High doses are known to be toxic, but the current research is focused on the effect of chronic, low-dose exposure, and exposure to children and fetuses during critical periods of development (e.g. DEHP was found to produce dramatic changes in male sexual development with low-dose exposure in utero). Additionally, it has been related to exacerbating allergic reactions to an allergen. (Here is a fairly non-neutral source of additional information including a list of products to avoid if you're trying to stay away from phthalates.)
• Parabens widely used as preservatives in the cosmetic and pharmaceutical industries, as well as in food products (here is a not-too-biased source of information about these products). Long-term studies have generally found parabens to be safe. However, other studies have found the presence of parabens in cancerous breast tumors, leading to concern that parabens in underarm deodorants may be related to the development of cancers. Further, parabens have been found to have weak estrogenic activity in the body. This category seems to still have a big question mark.
  
• Dioxins are produced as a biproduct of PVC manufacture, and are also found in a variety of household goods such as most brands of baby diapers. They are considered to be a global health threat because they persist in the environment for an extended period and appear to be very toxic. At even very low levels, near those to which the general population is exposed, dioxins have been linked to immune system suppression, reproductive disorders, a variety of cancers, and endometriosis.
  

I hope you found this as helpful as I did. My head was really starting to spin trying to figure out which was which, and how bad any of this really is.

how to keep your kid safe from lead poisoning: link

There's an interesting post over at Safe Mama about protecting children from lead poisoning. We live in a neighborhood with a lot of older homes and I know of at least a couple of young kids who were found to have high levels of lead in their bodies. Since it's not typically tested for, it's hard to know how many other cases go undetected until the effects of chronic lead exposure are severe and irreversible!
Safe Mama is also a great resource for information on BPA/bisphenol-a/polycarbonate, safe beauty products, toys etc, if you're looking!

...so which plastics are safe?

Once I started thinking about the issues with polycarbonate leaching bisphenol-A into my kids' warm milk it really started me wondering about all the other plastics we use. The Gladware we use for all our leftovers (we have about 20 entree-sized ones and use them for everything)? Plastic wrap? I've presumed that the plastic clamshell that carries my strawberries to market is safe, but is it? A little digging has led me to compile the following list of the seven most common plastics and their relative safety. It doesn't include the random ones like "12," but hey, this will cover about 99% of what's touching your food and kids.

The number is what you find inside the little recycling symbol on the bottom of plastic goods.

1. Polyethylene terephthalate (PET or PETE) Used to make soda and water bottles, many clear/translucent squeezy bottles for salad dressing and such, plus plastic jars and produce clamshells. GOOD: Not known to leach any chemicals that are suspected of causing cancer or disrupting hormones. Often recycled.
   
2. High-density polyethylene (HDPE) Typically used to manufacture milk jugs, water and juice bottles, some yogurt and cream cheese or margarine tubs, cereal box liner bags and grocery and trash bags. GOOD: Not known to leach any chemicals that are suspected of causing cancer or disrupting hormones. Often recycled.
   
3. Polyvinyl chloride (V or PVC) Most deli meats and cheeses, plus foods in styrofoam trays (see #6) are wrapped in plastic wrap made with PVC. BAD: To soften it and make it flexible, manufacturers add plasticizers. Traces of these chemicals can leach out of PVC when in contact with foods. One of these plasticizers, di-2-ethylhexyl phthalate (DEHP), commonly found in PVC, is a suspected human carcinogen. Not widely recycled.
   
4. Low-density polyethylene (LDPE) Some bread, frozen food, and grocery bags, plus some squeezy bottles. OK: Not known to leach any chemicals that are suspected of causing cancer or disrupting hormones. Not widely recycled.
   
5. Polypropylene (PP) Some ketchup and other squeezy bottles, most yogurt and margarine tubs, some flexible sippy cups. OK: Hazardous during production, but not known to leach any chemicals that are suspected of causing cancer or disrupting hormones. Not widely recycled.
   
6. Polystyrene (PS) Foam insulation, styrofoam, hot food containers, shrinky dinks, and other hard applications (e.g. cups, toys) BAD: Benzene, used in polystyrene prodcution, is a known human carcinogen. Butadiene and styrene, the basis of the plastic are suspected carcinogens. Energy intensive and not often recycled.
7. Other (usually polycarbonate) Baby feeding bottles, microwave ovenware, disposable eating utensils, most clear/colored drinkware (e.g. most clear Nalgene bottles produced until a few weeks ago), epoxy lining of metal cans, lexan products. BAD: Made with biphenyl-A, a chemical invented in the 1930s in research to develop synthetic estrogens. A known hormone disruptor that simulates the action of estrogen when tested in human breast cancer studies as well as numerous other effects. Can leach into food as the plastic breaks down over time, particularly into warm, fatty liquids.

Apparently my strawberries are safe, but I now know that some plastic wraps contain plasticizers (see 3, above, but good luck figuring out which!) so I won't be using those in the microwave or with anything wet or greasy. Also, I'm still a bit worried about my Gladware. It's apparently made of "oleoresin polymers," but I'm really not clear on what those are or whether they're safe or suspicious. I'll have to get back to you on that....