What's your body burden?

The things I learned when investigating just how toxic my little girls life really was on a day to day basis shocked me.  I thought I was feeding her healthy foods & bathing her in soaps made for babies... I had no idea just how loaded with chemicals a lot of the products we used were.  Lets just start with external body burden for now.


Your skin is the largest organ on your body, and yes, it does absorb what you put on it.  If you think Johnson's&Johnson's makes safe products for your infant, think again.  When reading ingredients, keep this in mind; if you can't pronounce it & you wouldn't eat it, you should not put it on your skin.  EWG's Cosmetic Safety Database is the best place to go to find out what your products are rated at for safety as well as giving you an explanation of ingredients & how the toxic ones can harm you.  For example, according to EWG, J&J's No More Tears Baby Shampoo's ingredients are linked to:

• Developmental/reproductive toxicity
• Allergies/immunotoxicity
• Neurotoxicity
• Organ system toxicity (non-reproductive)
• Irritation (skin, eyes, or lungs)
• Enhanced skin absorption
• Contamination concerns

 And to think, this is the same stuff the hospital used to give my newborn her first bath.  Wow.  

Of the multiple chemical ingredients in our daily products, there is one in particular that most people mistakingly consider harmless.  Fragrance is NOT REGULATED by the FDA.  Heres a few notes from a Fragrance Fact Sheet: 

• There are 3,000 – 5,000 chemicals used in fragrance.
• 95% of these chemicals are derived from petroleum.
• Over 80% of the chemicals in fragrance have not been tested for human toxicity.
• Some of the chemicals found in fragranced products are on the EPA hazardous waste list.
• The perfume industry is not regulated by any government agency and is not required to disclose the ingredients in “fragrance”.

Many of the chemicals in perfume are the same chemicals in cigarette smoke, and yet there is no regulation of the fragrance industry.  Many people are "bothered" by perfumes - developing headaches, sinus problems, and even asthma from exposures.  Many have gotten sick or even disabled from wearing (or being exposed to) fragrances and using other scented products.  Fragrances are  used in almost every cleaning, laundry, and personal-care product on the market!  Aside from the damage caused when inhaling, these chemicals go directly into the bloodstream when applied to our skin and are also absorbed into the skin from our clothing.  

Better choices are listed on the Fragrance Fact Sheet  as well.  We use organic personal care items, laundry soaps, cleaners etc.  We burn unscented soy candles & use essential oils as perfumes.  My favorite place for personal care items is Soulful Earth Herbals.  I have become friends with the owner over the years, she is very knowledgeable in the health benefits of herbs.  She's a wonderful person & her heart & soul goes into making her products.  We love them all, my mom even swears by the Arthritis Rub.   

Changing our body burden has made a huge impact in our lives, especially for my little girl.  She was diagnosed with asthma at 18 months of age.  Removing toxic chemicals from every day items along with dietary changes, homeopathy, and chiropractic care, just to name a few, at 2 years of age I was able to REMOVE ALL ASTHMATIC MEDICATIONS FOREVER.  She is a little over 4 years old now & no signs of the asthma or the eczema that plagued her have reared their ugly head for over 2 years.