Last night I watched Men in Danger, a documentaryabout the effect of phthalates (found in household items such as nail polish, cosmetics such as creams, some plastics) on foetal development. I completely freaked out because I was pretty tired and exhausted anyway and had been hoping to relax in front of the TV for an hour or so before bed.
So I started worrying much like this yahoo poster, not only about what happened when I was pregnant but the eczema treatment my baby has been undergoing since he was 4 months. Not only cortisone but daily application of a commercial collodial oatmeal moisturiser after a daily bath on a commercial colloadial oatmeal oil bath (Dermaveen). We had started using Dermeze as recommended by the paediatrician but moved onto Dermaveen when the nurses at the hospital sent for the wrong product and told us it was much of a muchness. Now I’m worrying about whether or not I was stupid to listen to her rather than my gut instinct which told me that Dermeze has less product in it, it’s basically just paraffin. I’ve been applying my baby in this treatment since he was 4 months old!

During pregnancy I led a pretty organic life but I did spend a lot of time at the laptop and there’s plastic all around me. I live in a plastic world! I drink out of plastic bottles, put my left over food in plastic containers…the worse thing is that I was painting a room before I realised I was pregnant. Thank goodness I had terrible morning sickness before I realised I was pregnant and that stopped me from doing anything else that could be harmful to my baby.

Anyway before I get even more hysterical, the program was about the effect of modern living on sperm in humans. Researchers are investigating the co-relation between phthalates and smaller penis size, abnormal sperm, testicular cancer, undescended testicles. The Danish, who are very progressive, didn’t want for final findings to come out. They already started printing out brochures telling pregnant women what to avoid during pregnancy - cosmetics, hair dye to name a few and the European have already restricted phthalates in their toys. California are going to follow suit in 2009. One of the scary things that came out of the documentary was that some chemicals alone have no effect on our hormones, but when they interact with other chemicals that we come in contact with on a daily basis it can have a detrimental effect on our hormones.
Meanwhile, we’re still buying all these toxic toys for our kids out of ignorance. Industry groups are trying to minimise the research by saying that it’s inconclusive. I’m sure that’s what the tobacco industry said about cigarettes.

My husband is rolling his eyes because now I’m trying to find out what is the average anus to genital length in babies. Baby boys in the Danish research who have had their hormones modified by phthalates have smaller penises and shorter anus to genital length.

Great and moisturizers have a xenoestrogen effect - researchers are exploring this link to breast cancer.

Researchers in this field are seen as lunatics, but then again so were people who were crying out about climate change.

Here are some resources if anyone should stumble across this blog in search for more information about phthalates:

Here is a website which will make you feel less anxious about the plastic toys in your house - if you choose to believe it. I am not sure who is behind this website, but I am a little suspicious of any information site that is this sleek and has a trademarked title. Me? I’m going to wait and see what other research comes out on this one and find out who is funding the research. Can research funded by industry which produces results in favour of industry be trusted? What is the generalisability of lab experiments? What is the retest reliability? Is there external and internal stability in the research process? When I have time, I’ll log onto the university library database and look for the original scholarly articles on this topic: