Does a Baby Need to Wear Perfume?

As everyone who knows me will tell you, synthetic fragrance such as air fresheners, Glade, Febreze  and others that companies have brainwashed our culture into believing we must use to "freshen" the air in buildings like our homes, our workplaces, our churches and schools can make me seriously ill.

Television ads for sprays that cover scents show outdoor scenes with sunshine and breezes blowing. But the truth is the products made by these companies contain very harmful chemicals, some that cause cancer and many that bring on asthma, especially in children and older adults. Childhood asthma has been on the rise in this country in recent years. Could it be because of the household products used in homes and schools? Could it be the personal care products used by mothers and fathers?

Recently a company in Italy decided that babies don't smell sweet enough. They are manufacturing perfume for little children. Read more here.

I have learned through my research that babies are often born toxic from the chemicals ingested by their mothers during pregnancy. These women who use perfume, body wash, shampoo, makeup, and soap filled with chemicals have no idea what they are doing to their unborn children. 

Small children and older people do not have strong immune systems and that is why this demographic falls victim to the flu, pneumonia, and other diseases. They should be protected from the pollution of the air they breathe because their respiratory systems are most vulnerable. 

Marcia, a young mother, told me that she often rushed her son to the emergency room when he couldn't breathe due to asthma.  Then  she told me that when he rode in the car with her, he opened a window and hung his head out. He hated her perfume, he said.

She laughed and said he would have to get used to it. She made no connection.

This mother is the type who would likely dab a chemical fragrance on a young baby. She had no idea that she was poisoning her own son with her perfume. She also used dryer sheets on her laundry. For that reason I could not have her come to my house. The chemicals used in dryer sheets like Bounce can easily bring on an episode of asthmatic bronchitis for me and others like me who have that sensitivity. Some people break out in rashes when they use dryer sheets. Often no one makes the connection and they spend hundreds of dollars on a cure for their rash when all they had to do was stop using the dryer sheets. (I find the little bumpy blue balls work fine in my dryer)

The Environmental Workers Group acts as a watch dog for all of us. They do the research on products the manufacturers don't want us to see. Because the FDA has not required manufacturers to list the chemicals in the fragrances they use, we, the public, do not know what we are buying or how much we can safely ingest through the skin or in our lungs. 

Tests have shown that our indoor air is more polluted than the outside air, and people in the work force have no recourse if others in their offices use perfumes, colognes, or air fresheners. 

If the public only realized that none of us want to infringe on the rights of others to wear perfume, just don't infringe on our health by wearing it in public places. Don't put perfume on that new baby who can't defend himself. What is sweeter than a clean baby with a little baby powder, or just plain mild soap?

Remember that what goes on the skin, goes inside the body, into developing organs - brains and lungs. 

Other articles on chemical fragrances

The Environmental Workers Group

Safe Cosmetics

Sick Air Makes People Sick

Being a teacher I feel bound to educate anyone who will read or listen to the harmful effects of "room deodorizers" and spray cleaners. 

Not only do they bring on asthma attacks but they cause asthma attacks in those who never had them before.

The minute I walk into a store or office where room deodorizers have been used, my throat begins to close and my breathing becomes difficult. I have to leave as quickly as I can and even then the affects of those chemicals don't go away. Those of us who live with MCS, are often sickened to the point of being bedridden for several days. Sometimes these attacks go into bronchitis and last for weeks. Indoor air is more polluted than outdoor air, especially here in our mountains, where we have less automobile pollution. 

The following is an excerpt from an article by the Environmental Working Group. Read carefully. You might save your children, parents or others from respiratory problems that can't be cured.

Clorox, Fantastik, Febreze, Formula 409, Easy-Off, Lysol, Mr. Clean and Spic and Span. 

Many of the spray cleaners sold under these brand names are laced with quaternary ammonium compounds or ethanolamine, ingredients classified as asthmagens by the Association of Occupational and Environmental Clinics, a professional association of clinics and health experts. These chemicals can trigger asthma attacks and can cause new cases of the disease in people who are asthma-free. Ingredients classified as asthmagens don't belong in spray products. 

EWG Green Tip:

Skip spray products that contain ethanolamines (MEA, DEA and TEA) and "quats." Beware of ADBAC, benzalkonium chloride or ingredients with "-monium chloride" in the name from the label or the company's website.

 Do not use disinfecting sprays, since most of them contain asthmagens. 


EWG Green Tip:
If a room has an odor problem, track down the source and eliminate it instead of covering it up with fragrances. A bowl of baking soda in the bathroom can absorb odors. 

GCB tip: Mix white vinegar with water in a simple spray bottle and spray to clean the air.

Your Fragrance is Killing Me -- and You and Your Children

Have you ever counted how many cosmetics or personal care products you use in a day? Chances are it's nearly 10. And chances are good that they include shampoo, toothpaste, soap, deodorant, hair conditioner, lip balm, sunscreen, body lotion, shaving products if you're a man, and cosmetics if you are a woman. And what about your children? On any given day you might rub, spray, or pour some combination of sunscreen, diaper cream, shampoo, lotion, and maybe even insect repellant on their skin.

Most people use these products without a second thought, and believe that the government must certainly be policing the safety of the mixtures in these myriad containers. But they are wrong about this.

The government does not require health studies or pre-market testing for these products before they are sold. And as people apply an average of 126 unique ingredients on their skin daily, these chemicals, whether they seep through the skin, rinse down the drain, or flush down the toilet in human excretions, are causing concerns for human health, and for the impacts they may have to wildlife, rivers and streams.

Why personal care products? At first blush it may seem that mascara and shaving cream have little relevance to the broader world of environmental health. Think again. In August 2005, when scientists published a study finding a relationship between plasticizers called phthalates and feminization of U.S. male babies, they named fragrance as a possible culprit. When estrogenic industrial chemicals called parabens were found in human breast tumor tissue earlier this year, researchers questioned if deodorant was the source. And when studies show, again and again, that hormone systems in wildlife are thrown in disarray by common water pollutants, once again the list of culprits include personal care products, rinsing down drains and into rivers.

At the Environmental Working Group we have researched and advocated on personal care product safety for five years now, and consider it an integral part of our work to strengthen our system of public health protections from industrial chemicals. Here's why:

Industrial chemicals are basic ingredients in personal care products. The 10,500 unique chemical ingredients in these products equate to about one of every eight of the 82,000 chemicals registered for use in the U.S.

Personal care products contain carcinogens, pesticides, reproductive toxins, endocrine disruptors, plasticizers, degreasers, and surfactants. They are the chemical industry in a bottle.
No premarket safety testing required — this is a reality of both the personal care product industry and the broader chemical industry as a whole. For industrial chemicals, the government approves an average of seven new chemicals every day.

Eighty percent are approved in three weeks or less, with or without safety tests. Advocating that industry have an understanding of product safety before selling to the public finds common messages, common methods, and common gains whether the focus is cosmetic ingredients or other industrial chemicals.
Everyone uses personal care products. Exposures are widespread, and for some people, extensive. Our 2004 product use survey shows that more than a quarter of all women and one of every 100 men use at least 15 products daily. These exposures add up, and raise questions about the potential health risks from the myriad of unassessed ingredients migrating into the bodies of nearly every American, day after day.

No safety testing. According to the agency that regulates cosmetics, the FDA's Office of Cosmetics and Colors, "...a cosmetic manufacturer may use almost any raw material as a cosmetic ingredient and market the product without an approval from FDA" (FDA 1995). The industry's self-policing safety panel falls far short of compensating for the lack of government oversight. An EWG analysis found that in its 30-year history, the industry's self-policing safety panel has reviewed the safety of just 11 percent of the 10,500 ingredients used in personal care products. FDA does no systematic reviews of safety. And collectively, the ingredients in personal care products account for one of every eight of the 82,000 chemicals industries have registered for commercial use with the Environmental Protection Agency.

The article above is excerpted from http://www.ewg.org/. In a recent post I commented on chemical sensitivity which is a deadly problem for some of us. When you read the above and other information about the chemicals we ingest into our bodies, our childrens' bodies and how many of these chemicals pollute the air that others have to breathe, I hope you will think carefully about reading labels and becoming an advocate for the health of all of us. I've heard from others who have to deal with chemical sensitivity and it is a very serious problem.

82,000 chemicals are manufactured in this country and the people, you and I, are being subjected to the danger of them every day and in every place, including our own homes.