14 Common Toxins that Affect your Child’s Health and Where to Find Them

The brain uses sleep to clean away waste toxins that have collected during the day — Pound for pound, children get higher doses of chemicals than adults

When our children are born, we gaze at them with so much potential, love, and hope. As new parents, we wonder, what will my child be like? What will their personality be? Will they be smart? Will they be healthy?

Genetics plays a big role in the intelligence and health of our children, but so do toxins. Toxins interact with our genetic makeup. Even the toxins our grandmothers were exposed to affect our children; however, the first five years of life our critical times for development. Toxin exposure during this time lays the pathway for health and intelligence throughout life.

Mamavation has identifed the “TOP 10 TOXINS THAT MAY BE LOWERING YOUR CHILD’S IQ RIGHT NOW.”

We have written about every one of these toxins over the years. Although these are the top ten toxins that can affect intelligence, there are hundred of thousands more that we are exposed to and affect more than just IQ. The Chemical Industry Archives, a project of the Environmental Working Group (EWG) reports:

Facts and Figures

More than 7 million recognized chemicals are in existence, and approximately 80,000 of them are in common use worldwide (GAO 1994b).
A 1979 inventory of chemicals mandated by the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) contained 62,000 chemicals that were reported by manufacturers as being in commercial use at that time. The inventory is up to 73,757 chemicals as of February 2001.
EPA and the FDA have no idea exactly how many chemicals are used in consumer products, nor what products they are used in.
An unknown number of new chemicals are not among this total. Only new organic chemicals – chemicals that contain carbon – are added to the list. New chemicals that are exempt from the official listing process include inorganics, pesticides, food additives, some large polymer molecules, and any chemical produced in low quantities.

EWG has a different list of chemical toxins that young children are overall affected by:

The fetus, infants and children are more vulnerable to toxic substances:

Nitrate – Prolonged exposure to tap water with 20 ppm nitrate can kill an infant, but will have no observable effect on an adult.

Mercury – Exposure in the womb at 100 parts per billion will significantly increase the likelihood of learning deficits in childhood, while the same dose during adulthood has no measurable effect.

Radiation – Children exposed to radiation have a much higher incidence of cancer than adults exposed to the same dose.

PCBs – Levels of fetal PCB exposure that cause learning deficits that persist through adolescence, have no measurable effects on adults.

Ritalin – This commonly prescribed drug acts as a depressant and calming agent in children, but has the opposite effect in adults.

Honey – Infants under one year of age can contract a potentially fatal paralytic form of botulism from eating honey. In older children and adults the digestive system is more acidic and it destroys the botulism toxins present in the honey.

Lead – Doses at age 2 that cause IQ deficits throughout childhood produce no effect in adults.

It is extremely alarming to finding Ritalin on this list, as it is so commonly prescribed for children with attention problems (that were probably caused by toxic exposure).

It is overwhelming to consider the 14 toxins affect on our children’s health and intelligence. It’s even more overwhelming to consider where they are found in our homes and environment.

Here is a list of common uses/products for these common toxins identified by Mamavation and EWG. Chances are many of them are in your home:

Flame retardants: couches, mattresses, children’s sleepwear, computers, cars
Fluoride: toothpaste, mouthwash, drinking water, flossers
Lead: old paint, toys, lipstick, cheap jewelry, inflatable jump houses
Triclosan: hand soap, keyboards, scissors, toothpaste, bedding, cosmetics
Mercury: flu shots, vaccines, food containing high fructose corn syrup, fish, compact fluorescent light bulbs, dental fillings
Perfluorinated Compounds (PFCs): food wrappers, drinking water, stain resistant fabric, pizza boxes, carpeting, furniture, dental floss, non-stick cookware, shampoos
Arsenic: playgrounds, juice, rice, infant formula, water
Toluene: nail polish, toys, gasoline, paints, perfume, household cleaners, glues, nylon, plastic soda bottles, ink, nylon
Manganese: steel, aluminum, soda cans, gasoline, paint, batteries, coins, ceramics, glass
Phthalates: toys, pacifiers, vinyl flooring, vinyl shower curtains, perfume, nail polish, lotion, cars
Nitrates: food, drinking water, fertilizers, tennis balls, meat
Radiation: cell phones, nuclear leaks, power lines, electronics
Ritalin: prescription medicine
Honey: natural cough medicines, food products, drinks, etc.

If you would like more information, here are some of our previous posts for each of these toxins.

Flame retardants (including PCBs)

Fluoride

Lead

Triclosan

Mercury

Perfluorinated Compounds (PFCs)

Arsenic

Toluene

Manganese

Phthalates

Nitrates

Radiation

Ritalin

Honey

It’s interesting honey is included in the list from EWG, but it is potentially extremely harmful to children under two-years-old. According to Dr. Greene:

Infant botulism can occur any time in the first year of life, but like SIDS it is most common in the first six months. In fact it has been suggested that it might be the cause of death in up to 10% of SIDS cases (Nelson Textbook of Pediatrics; Saunders 1992)

Honey has many benefits for our health just not for young children.

I also find it interesting that both Mamavation and EWG excluded Bisphenol-A from their lists.

Young children are developmentally more susceptible to toxins. The EWG identifies two reasons:

Two important factors make the young more vulnerable.

1. The developing human body, particularly the fetus, has critical windows of vulnerability

Many studies have shown that the peak incidence of birth defects coincides with the timing of key developmental events. This means that maternal exposures to toxic substances on a particular day of pregnancy might cause devastating effects to a baby, while exposures on the very next day would cause no discernible effects whatsoever…

The brain is a particularly sensitive target for early-life exposures. The blood brain barrier, which protects the developing brain from some chemical exposures, is not fully developed at birth. Chemical substances have been shown to be three to ten times as toxic to newborns as adults, or in some cases to damage the newborn brain and not the adult brain, in part due to differences in the stages of development of the blood-brain barrier (Klassen 1996).

The human brain develops in overlapping phases, each presenting unique opportunities for chemical-induced damage, beginning in the womb within days of conception, and continuing through childhood. The right chemical at the right time has the potential to disrupt any of these processes.

2. Pound for pound, children get higher doses of chemicals than adults

For example, one part per billion of benzene in drinking water, air, or food translates into a greater exposure for a small child than an adult, because:

Children in the first six months of life drink seven times as much water per pound as does the average American adult.
Children one through five years of age eat three to four times more food per pound than the average adult.
Resting infants breathe twice as much air, pound for pound, as resting adults (Landrigan et al 1998).
Children from birth to two years of age have more than twice the body surface area of an adult – an important factor for the many chemicals that can absorb through skin (EPA 1997).
Just doing what children normally do can increase doses of chemicals. For instance, children put their hands in their mouths more often than adults, and play closer to the floor where some chemicals are more likely to be concentrated (Landrigan et al 1998).

Some of these chemicals are banned in the US and have been for decades, yet they remain persistent in our environment and thus our bodies. It is important to limit our children’s exposure to these chemicals, especially during the first five years of life. Informed consumers can make wise choices to purchase products that have reduced toxicity or natural, safe alternatives to the toxins outlined above.