I've been seeing several articles in the press for several days that warn that breast milk is exposing babies to toxic compounds. Every time I have seen them, I have become a Swede ... come on, I have looked the other way, by seeing if they stop appearing and nobody says anything about it.
However, they have begun to jump to social networks and are beginning to generate concern in mothers, mothers who breastfeed, mothers who breastfeed and also bottle, pregnant women who thought to breastfeed: are babies drinking contaminated milk? ?! What to do now? Is it time to give artificial milk instead of the recommended breast milk?
What those articles say: what the study says
The articles (Europa Press, RTVE, Low Word, IntraMed, Science News, etc.) speak of a study conducted at the University of Boston, in the United States, in which they have seen that some chemical compounds called perfluorinated (PFC) they can be transmitted from mothers to children through breastfeeding.
Apparently, the presence of PFC in breastfed children increases between 20% and 30% with each passing month, while breastfeeding. The authors comment this:
We knew that small amounts of PFCs could appear in the breast milk, but the serial blood tests we have done now reveal an accumulation in infants while breastfeeding.
To reach these conclusions, 81 children born in the Faroe Islands were monitored between 1997 and 2000, and analyzed the presence of five types of PFC in their blood at birth, at 11 months, 18 months and five years. They also looked at the levels in mothers in the 32nd week of pregnancy.
They saw what we have said, that each month the levels were increasing, and that comparing them with those who take mixed breastfeeding, the concentrations did not increase so much.
In addition, they observed that when women stopped breastfeeding, the concentrations of the five types of PFC decreased in children. Therefore they concluded the following:
We are not discouraging breastfeeding, but we are concerned that these contaminants are transferred from generation to generation at a very young age.
And if they are worried, then imagine the mothers, that the last thing they want is to do something wrong to their children.
But what are PFCs?
PFCs, as we can read in ECODES, are compounds widely used in detergents, solvents, in the Teflon industry for kitchen utensils, velcro, as flame retardants in furniture or carpets, and also in some types of packaging and packaging
They enter our body through the water, since they have been found in the tap water of the main Spanish cities, through food, especially for the effects of the wrappers and by the dust, by aspiration, especially in places with furniture that has flame retardant.
The possible health effects depend on age and weight (in babies it is more dangerous because they weigh little) and, although they are still being studied because it is not known very well how they harm us, it is thought that can affect the thyroid, the endocrine gland that we have in the neck that secretes hormones that regulate our metabolism and our growth.
So, is women's milk contaminated?
Sure, for many years. Decades ago, in fact. Where you see a factory, where you see an industry, where you see materials that are not in nature, there will be contaminated people. Breast milk is contaminated, but so are you, and your partner, and your mother, your father, your cousins, your children. We are all to a greater or lesser extent because we inhale, breathe and ingest contaminants continuously.
A few months ago we commented that gaining little weight during pregnancy could increase the transfer of contaminants from the mother to the baby via the placenta. Pollutants stick to our body fat, and the fetus feeds on part of that fat and that the woman receives through the diet, so if the woman eats little, the placenta has to pull the woman's reserves and then receives more toxic. I also copy a curious and quite terrible fragment:
The study is part of the Childhood and Environment (INMA) project, funded by the Carlos III Health Institute and it sought not only organohalogenated compounds, but also polychlorobiphenyl (PCB) and polychlorobiphenyl ether (PBDE). All babies had detectable levels of organohalogenated contaminants, although they saw that the highest concentration of contaminant was the DDT insecticide, found in 99.7% of the babies. This is curious, because DDT was banned more than 40 years ago, but it is so polluting that it is still part of us and, what is worse, it is transmitted to babies via the placenta.
99.7% of babies are already born with DDT and with various toxins. That in the study we have discussed speak only of PFC, but it is that There are many more, as you just read.
How polluted are we?
If a baby born today is contaminated with DDT, which has been banned for more than 40 years, this means that we inherit it from our parents, or that we have eaten it from animals, from their fats, or that ... come on, that we are all contaminated How to know how polluted we are? Very easy: we donate a piece of our body fat for science to analyze and that's it.
Well, it is not so easy ... doing a study with many people who have to extract a piece of fat is not so easy, so you have to think about some fat-rich tissue that can be achieved with fewer complications. Yes! Breast milk!
The breast milk contains fatIt is a living tissue, it is part of women, it is liquid, it is easily analyzed and it is also achieved without much difficulty.
Well this is the crux of the matter. They have not discovered that breast milk is contaminated. They have discovered that we are all terribly contaminated, because breast milk is nothing more than an indicator of the contamination of a population.
So, shouldn't we go to artificial milk?
Well no, because as I said we have been contaminated for decades. Surely now we are more than before, but the studies that compare artificial milk and breast milk continue to show that it is better, despite contamination, to continue breastfeeding.
The day that breast milk go green and stumble because of the industries (because the fault that the milk is contaminated is not of the mothers, but of the environmental contamination), because it will be necessary to see what is better, if to breastfeed or buy artificial milk (manufactured in those industries that They also help contaminate breast milk.)
We must also take into account that artificial milk is not free of danger. Unfortunately, there are many cases of contaminated batches that have posed real danger to babies. In China, a few years ago, lots with a compound that should not be there ended the lives of many children and about 10,000 children hospitalized. Also in Asian countries they removed artificial milk because of the risk of botulism. In Spain, batches have been withdrawn due to the risk of salmonella and batches of milk for allergies to cow's milk protein, because they contain cow's milk proteins. And in Argentina, not long ago, to contain the bacteria Cronobacter Sakazakii.
Come on, yes, because of the world in which we live breast milk is more contaminated than desirable, but no, it's still better for children to take breast, because not everything is to watch over the thyroid of babies (which also, and that is why governments have to ensure our safety at the environmental level), because we have to take into account many more things, such as those we discussed when talking about differences between breast milk and artificial milk. Unfortunately, those who are not breastfed because their mothers cannot, are affected by the disadvantages of artificial milk, which is still far from resembling breast milk.
More information
As this issue of contaminants in breast milk is recurring (every two or three years a study comes out saying how contaminated it is) and whenever one comes out people worry about it, the Spanish Association of Pediatrics (AEP) published in the 2011 a very explanatory article in which he talked extensively about it. If you want more information about it, and also know how to decrease pollution levels, do not miss it, because it is very interesting. You can read it here.
So, with this information, and until the milk comes out radioactive, you will be clear, every time a news comes out that says that we are almost killing children with female breasts, that it is still better to breastfeed than to give artificial milk. And it probably will always be, because the day that breast milk is so toxic will be a sign that we are all so intoxicated that it will not matter what babies take.
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In Babies and more | Pollution is affecting breast milk and baby's semen quality. Tips to reduce exposure to contaminants in nursing mothers (and in all)
