Backbone > Life in the Balance

Got Toxins?
By Susan Piperato Photo by Roy Gumpel

Think “motherhood” and inevitably what comes to mind is the quintessential image of a mother breastfeeding her infant. As a friend of mine once remarked after finding me, then an exhausted new mom, passed out on her couch, my firstborn son in my arms still suckling away, and (according to her) a look of utter contentment on my face, it’s an image that’s nothing short of “Madonna-esque”. Poetically speaking, the act of breastfeeding is “a very exquisite communion” between a mother and child, says ecologist and mother Dr. Sandra Steingraber.

While no other act besides lovemaking could be so sweet, so tender, or, I dare say, as mutually fulfilling as breastfeeding, sustaining one’s infant with one’s body has become (again, like sex) an act that also has the potential to be harmful. Like everything else that lives today on earth, breast milk has become contaminated. While the biggest question traditionally facing a new mother has been whether to bottle-feed or breastfeed, the question she now must face is whether to risk passing toxic chemicals through breastfeeding.

Certainly the time-honored benefits of breastfeeding are inarguable. Breast milk contains antibodies and growth enzymes not found in formula, and passes on immunity, making breastfed children less prone to gastroenteritis, allergies, eczema, and asthma; middle ear, urinary tract, and respiratory infections; high blood pressure, obesity, and diabetes. Studies show that breastfed children score slightly higher on iq tests. For mothers, breastfeeding decreases the chance of breast and some forms of ovarian cancer, as well as osteoporosis. They are also spared the expense and bother of preparing formula and sterilizing bottles. No doubt about it, as the slogan goes, "Breast is best."

However, reports RACHEL's Hazardous Waste News, "If breast milk from American women were bottled and sold commercially, it would be subject to ban by the US Food and Drug Administration because it is contaminated with more than 100 industrial chemicals including pesticides. fda has set limits on contamination of commercial milk by pesticides, and human milk routinely exceeds those limits by a large margin."

So far, no experts are disagreeing. According to Mount Sinai School of Medicine's Dr. Philip Landrigan, "breast milk is not as good as it could be and as it used to be." Over the past 30 years, Dr. Landrigan and several international health and environmental organizations agree (among them the World Health Organization, World Wide Fund for Nature (wwf), unicef, nrdc, Greenpeace, and Friends of the Earth), several toxic chemicals have found their way into the human body and, most insidiously, into breast milk. Annually, at least 1,000 new commercial chemicals are introduced by us chemical manufacturers, with either no or little safety testing required. Meanwhile, known carcinogenics and hormone-disrupters such as polychlorinated biphenyls (pcbs); brominated flame retardents like polybromo diphenyl ethers (pbdes); dioxin; dieldrin; ddt; dichlorodiphenyl dichloroethene (ddes); benzene; carbon tetrachloride; and a wide range of solvents and heavy metals are absorbed by all humans from polluted air and water and contaminated foods, whether fish, vegetable, fruit, or animal product. In the us, the numbers are likely considerably higher, given that much of our commercial produce is grown in chemical-laden sewer sludge, of which 8 billion pounds is routinely spread over us farmland annually.

Because these chemicals are fat soluble, they cannot be excreted from the body and instead attach to fat cells. A body's fat cells can "house" such chemicals for a lifetime; however, by breastfeeding, a woman activates her fat cells to produce milk. An alarming 20 percent of a woman's total body burden of contaminants can be passed to her baby within the first six months of breastfeeding, says Steingraber. In England it is estimated that babies are being exposed to between 10 and 40 times the who's daily limits of toxic chemicals.

According to the us clearinghouse Optimal Health Center's Dr. Joseph Mercola, the presence of pbdes in breast milk is especially alarming because they have been shown to cause cancer and disrupt hormones and normal growth and development in laboratory animals. Plus, pbdes are everywhere: in warm tvs and computers, draperies, foam padding, carpeting, plastic casing, and within the dust cloud that blew from Ground Zero. According to Dr. Mercola, because the us still has no regulations governing the production, use, or disposal of pbdes, the policy is basically, "Don't ask, don't tell." Meanwhile, says Peter Montague of RACHEL's, "it is known that infants are much more susceptible to toxic chemicals than are adults because an infant's kidneys, liver, enzyme systems, and blood-brain barrier are not fully developed." And organizations such as wwf are documenting birth defects and reproductive, behavioral, and developmental abnormalities in wildlife linked to toxic chemical exposure.

Amazingly enough, there is a bright side in this very dark picture. Thanks to bans or strict controls in the West on certain chemicals like pcbs, ddt, and dioxins in recent years, levels of these chemicals in breast milk have begun to decrease. What is needed now is further testing and, more obviously, more bans. "We are making a very clear and unequivocal affirmation that those of us in the medical community are all absolutely convinced that breast milk is without question the very best form of nutrition for human infants," says Dr. Landrigan. So, agree the experts, let's protect it. "We should be asking how can we get environmental contaminants out of breast milk," Steingraber told the 2001 New York Academy of Medicine's conference on breast milk and children's health. But remember this: she made that statement while nursing her seven-week-old baby daughter.

Take Action!
The World Alliance for Breastfeeding Action (waba) is a global network of individuals and organizations (International Baby Food Action Network, La Leche League International) working together with unicef to promote and protect breastfeeding. www.waba.org.br.

The National Resources Defense Council (nrdc) is a national, nonprofit organization of scientists, lawyers, and environmentalists dedicated to protecting the environment and public health, including breastfeeding. www.nrdc.org/breastmilk/.

Gabrielle Palmer's The Politics of Breastfeeding (Pandora, 1988; updated 1998) is the bible of breastfeeding as a both a right and a radical act. Currently out-of-print, this book discusses breastfeeding in light of ecology, history, feminism, nutrition, economics, sociology, and science, maintaining that it is an empowering female function suffering from the consequences of male control.

Dr. Sandra Steingraber, Cornell University biologist, ecologist, poet, and cancer survivor, combines poetry, science, and personal experience in both Living Downstream: A Scientist's Personal Investigation of Cancer and the Environment (Random House, 1998) and Having Faith (Perseus Publishing, 2001), an evocative account of the author's pregnancy, following cancer.

What's a Mother-to-Be to Do?

Test for toxicity. There are two options to detect foreign chemicals in breast milk. First, a pregnant woman may have a small amount (about a teaspoon) of body fat removed from beneath the abdominal skin (through a small incision or via a large-bore suction device), placed in a glass container, frozen and sent to a laboratory for chemical contamination testing. Or, have breast milk tested shortly after the baby's birth; express milk via a breast pump, store it in a sterile plastic bag, and freeze it for the lab.

Do some detoxing. Toxin levels can be decreased. Careful fasting, detoxifying herbal teas, homeopathic and herbal remedies, and regular, vigorous exercise that induces sweating all help clean out the body.

Eat to avoid toxins. Consider J. Hergenrather's landmark study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine (304:792, 1981). A study of 12 lactating women living at "The Farm," a Tennessee vegan community, found their breast milk samples contained significantly lower levels of toxic chemicals compared to the general population. If you must eat meat, limit your intake to organic, free-range beef, poultry, and dairy products to avoid intake of toxic chemicals. As for fish and seafood, no one, especially pregnant and lactating women, should consume anything taken from waterways known to be contaminated, including New York Harbor and the Hudson River.