What Does ‘Body Burden’ Mean and How Does this Affect My Family?

When I first heard the term ‘body burden,’ I thought it had more to do with remaining baby weight than anything else. (It’s still alright to call it baby weight when the babies are no longer babies, right?) Body burden actually refers to the accumulation of toxic chemicals in one’s body. You read that correctly – toxic chemicals are building up in your body and, even more frightening, in the body of your child.

Researchers estimate that the average adult has more than 700 chemicals coursing through their veins or stored in their body fat. The umbilical cord blood of babies born in the United States has been shown to contain approximately 200 chemicals. (For more about the studies of newborns, see http://archive.ewg.org/reports/bodyburden2/.)  Some of these chemicals clear the body quickly while others can stick around for years.

It is especially important for want-to-be and soon-to-be parents to be familiar with this concept because:

1. developing babies and children are particularly vulnerable to exposure and
2. there are many ways to limit exposure, thus reducing the body burden.

While it was once believed that the placenta protected fetuses from chemical exposure, the statistics above show that is sadly not the case. Babies are exposed to the chemicals present in the mother’s bloodstream through the exchange of blood in utero. When women reduce their chemical exposure, the chemical exposure of any children they bear is also reduced.

After birth, some chemicals in the mother’s body can also be transferred through breastmilk. Medical providers already encouraged women to breastfeed due to the many health and psychological benefits for both baby and mother. Recent studies have shown that breastfeeding also offsets some of the damage caused during fetal development by chemical exposure so this is yet another reason to make every effort to breastfeed.

The long-term effects of most of these chemicals have not been fully studied nor have the effects of the combination of chemicals. Chemical exposure can arise from every day items such as cleaning products, cosmetics, and plastic food containers.

While you can’t take a blood test online (at least, not yet), you can fill out a questionnaire at http://extras.insidebayarea.com/bodyburden/bodyburden.html. Answering this 35 question quiz can help you see what areas to tackle first to reduce your family’s exposure to toxic chemicals.

Please see Affordable Nontoxic Make-Up (coming soon) for suggestions on creating inner and outer beauty. We’ll continue to add articles to help you reduce your family’s chemical exposure so look for more soon.

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